Birmingham key test city for 4G

BIRMINGHAM is at the forefront of the Government’s 4G plans. It is one of four ‘test’ cities and coverage is expected to be launched here within weeks.

Together with London, Cardiff and Bristol, Birmingham is currently being used to test fourth generation (4G) mobile services. They will then be launched in 16 UK cities before the end of the year.

Everything Everywhere (EE) will continue the rollout into the new year, and aims to provide 4G to 98% of the UK by 2014.

4G mobile technology will mean the chosen cities will benefit from improved network access speeds.

And further rollout could prove a boon to rural areas where fixed line broadband speeds are poor.

EE will offer several handsets to use with the service. Within the year, these will be Samsung’s Galaxy S III LTE; HTC’s One XL and Huawei’s Ascend P1 LTE.

EE won permission to launch 4G services in an Ofcom ruling published in August
Rival networks are being forced to wait to launch their 4G services as they do not have any spare spectrum to use.