Plans to replace the current 3G mobile network with new 4G technology have been criticised by business groups. The Federation of Small Businesses and the National Farmers Union (NFU) say the rollout is taking too long and won’t cover enough of the UK.

They are worried hundreds of thousands of people, mainly in rural areas, could be left behind.

Ofcom says the project is moving as quickly as possible and that no final decision has been made about coverage .

Two 4G trials are being carried out in the UK.

“Businesses in rural areas need broadband now. They [the government and Ofcom] need to move faster on this and be more ambitious”
Andrew Cave – Federation of Small Businesses

One is taking place in central London, run by O2, and another in north Cornwall, jointly run by Everything Everywhere and BT.

Twenty-five-year-old Hayley Gaffney is one of around 200 people taking part in the Cornwall trial.

Until she got the 4G broadband she was only getting speeds of just over 1Mbps.

“The internet was an absolute nightmare,” she says. “It just kept crashing because it was so slow.”

However, since joining the trial her broadband speed has jumped to more than 11Mbps.

“The internet really is amazing to what it was before,” says Hayley.

“It was things like watching YouTube, uploading photos onto Facebook, just uploading the news feed on Facebook, getting my emails without getting them a few days later. Before it was so slow.

“‘More ambition’

Andrew Cave from the Federation of Small Businesses says those kinds of benefits are vital to roll out to every part of the UK, not just urban areas.

“Businesses in rural areas need broadband now,” says Mr Cave.

Hayley Gaffney says her 4G internet experience is “amazing”

“They [the government and Ofcom] need to move faster on this and be more ambitious.”

Current plans mean the 4G network won’t be in place until 2013 at the earliest and will only allow for a maximum of 98% of the UK to be covered.

Phil Bicknell, chief economist at the NFU, says it means that hundreds of thousands of people, mainly living in rural areas, risk being left behind.

“Coverage is just part of it,” he says.

“The other issue is with regard to connection speeds.

“We’re seeing that widening gap between those people in rural areas, in terms of the speed of their connection with broadband, and those superfast connections that are increasingly emerging in urban areas.”

Have you been waiting for the bug fixing update that Sprint was rolling out for the Nexus S 4G on July 11? You should stand down as something has forced the carrier to postpone the update until some unspecified date in the future. No reason was given for holding off on the Nexus S 4G OTA update, unlike the one for the Samsung Transform that began rolling out but “was failing” before cancelation. That one will be rescheduled for some point when the update will actually work.

The Nexus S 4G update will bring the flagship Google phone to the latest version of Gingerbread. More importantly the update addresses signal strength issues that some Sprint customers have reported affecting both phone calls and data connections. Hopefully it won’t be long delayed for those customers.

These update problems demonstrate once again how poorly the Android update system works. It’s never known which phones will get a given update, or when it might happen if so. Now we have a couple of handsets that are to get an update which gets canceled for reasons unknown. It is not a simple process for Android handset makers, that is certain.

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The HP TouchPad launched July 1 with support only for Wi-Fi networks. That will change by the time September rolls around, as AT&T on Tuesday announced a version of the TouchPad that is compatible with its HSPA+ 4G network. In addition to the support for AT&T’s mobile broadband service, the new version of the TouchPad will also boast a better processor. The original TouchPad shipped with a 1.2-GHz Qualcomm SnapDragon processor. The 4G TouchPad’s processor has a clock speed of 1.5 GHz.

If you’re thinking that 4G in this case means AT&T’s forthcoming Long Term Evolution network, you’d be mistaken. The upcoming TouchPad will run on AT&T’s HSPA+ 4G network. AT&T does not advertise the speeds it offers through its HSPA+ network. Instead, it says markets with “enhanced backhaul” have the best service available.

Adding LTE to this device would have been a much more compelling feature than HSPA+, but I suppose beggars can’t be choosers. As it is, AT&T plans to launch only five LTE markets this summer, with perhaps another 10 markets following by the end of the year. With such a limited footprint at the start, it is no wonder that the first AT&T LTE devices will be a USB modem and a mobile hotspot.

Speaking of hotspots, the 4G TouchPad also will have unfettered access to AT&T’s 20,000 Wi-Fi access points in case its HSPA+ network isn’t available. That means free Wi-Fi in tons of airports, hotels, convention halls, and eateries where, I’m told, business folk like to congregate.

“Consumers and small business customers are seeking cutting-edge mobile computing devices that offer easy access to the Web and the ability to stay in touch with friends and clients on the go,” David Haight , AT&T vice president of business development, said in a statement. “The TouchPad 4G is a sharp, multifunctional device that delivers the perfect set of features. Pairing it with the nation’s fastest mobile broadband network and most extensive Wi-Fi network gives TouchPad 4G users the best mobile broadband experience in the market.”

Other features of the HP TouchPad 4G remain mostly unaltered. It includes a 1.3 megapixel camera, native social networking support, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, and GPS. It will run webOS 3.0. HP has done a few innovative things, such as allow all webOS devices to easily and seamlessly speak to one another and transfer content. Based on its Touchstone technology, webOS devices–such as the TouchPad and Pre 3–can sync and share things such as Web pages, media, documents, and so on.

As for the software, HP’s new head of the webOS business group, Stephen DeWitt, said that webOS 3.0 is set to receive its first significant over-the-air update in about 10 days. The update will clear up a lot of the problems seen be early adopters since the device’s July 1 launch. Specifics weren’t shared.

No specific details on pricing nor availability were given for the HP TouchPad 4G, either. When it does go on sale, it will be sold through AT&T’s business channels, HP’s business channels, and major retail outlets.

At the 2011 InformationWeek 500 Conference, C-level executives from leading global companies will gather to discuss how their organizations are turbo-charging business execution and growth–how their accelerated enterprises manage cash more effectively, invest more wisely, delight customers more consistently, manage risk more profitably. The conference will feature a range of keynote, panel, and workshop sessions. St. Regis Monarch Beach, Calif., Sept. 11-13. Find out more and register.

SOURCE: http://www.informationweek.com

The Sensation features a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. It will sell for $199.99 after rebate with a two-year service agreement for voice and data, T-Mobile said Wednesday.

 

The HTC Sensation 4G features a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor.

With that much processing power, the Sensation is at the very top of what is being offered in today’s market for smartphones, some of which sell for as much as $300 with a service plan.

The Sensation will be T-Mobile’s most powerful smartphone and will run over the carrier’s 4G network, which is HSPA+ or HSPA+42 where available. The download speeds on those networks can rival LTE network speeds from Verizon Wireless, which advertises that users can get download speeds of up to 12 Mbps.

T-Mobile advertises up to 14.4 Mbps downloads for the Sensation on its spec sheet.

The Sensation boasts other premium features, including a 4.3-in. touchscreen display with a 960-by-540-pixel resolution. T-Mobile calls the smartphone a “must-have for high-end smartphone fans,” including those who value video and audio quality. In that area, HTC has preloaded various applications such as HTC Watch, a library of movies and TV shows for rent or purchase, as well as HTC Listen, a library of millions of songs that can be purchased and transferred to another device or computer.

T-Mobile has enabled a video chat application by Qik, which operates over T-Mobile’s network and Wi-Fi. There is an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera that complements a VGA front-facing camera. The Sensation can also record HD video.

The device measures 4.96 inches by 2.57 inches and is .44 inches thick. It weighs 5.22 ounces, putting it on the heavy end of smartphones.

Internal storage is 1GB, but the phone comes with a MicrosSD expansion slot. The 1520 mAH Lithium-Ion battery supports up to about eight hours of talk time on T-Mobile’s GSM network.

Android 2.3, also known as Gingerbread, is the latest Android OS and is considered faster and smoother than Android 2.2. Gingerbread was released in December.

T-Mobile explained that the Sensation will by available by June 15 on its Web site and in T-Mobile stores, but added that select Wal-Mart stores are expected to have it as early as June 12.

Source: http://www.computerworld.com

Sprint has stopped playing coy about one of the worst-leaked devices in recent memory and has at long last made it official. The EVO View 4G is a 7-inch, 1024 x 600 Android tablet with a 1.5GHz processor, 5 megapixel rear- and 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera, a WiMAX radio, and HTC’s loving application of Sense for a UI. If all this sounds familiar, it’ll be because we’re really talking about HTC’s Flyer tablet, introduced at last month’s MWC, and just like it, the EVO View will also feature the HTC Scribe capacitive stylus. The Evo View 4G will ship with 32GB of storage “this summer.” You’ll now find the full press release and spec sheet (including a healthy gigabyte of RAM and a 4000mAh battery) after the break, and some preliminary shots below. Full hands-on to come!

By David Goldman, staff writerFirst Published: December 1, 2010: 8:42 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — You’ve seen the 4G advertisements from T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon, bragging about a much-better wireless network with blazing fast speeds.

Here’s the secret the carriers don’t advertise: 4G is a myth. Like the unicorn, it hasn’t been spotted anywhere in the wild just yet — and won’t be any time in the near future.

The International Telecommunication Union, the global wireless standards-setting organization, determined last month that 4G is defined as a network capable of download speeds of 100 megabits per second (Mbps). That’s fast enough to download an average high-definition movie in about three minutes.

None of the new networks the carriers are rolling out meet that standard.

Sprint (S, Fortune 500) was the first to launch a network called 4G, going live with it earlier this year. Then, T-Mobile launched its 4G network, claiming to be “America’s largest 4G network.” Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) plans to launch its 4G network next week, which it claims will be the nation’s largest and the fastest. AT&T (T, Fortune 500) is expected to unveil its 4G network next year.

Those networks have theoretical speeds of a fifth to a half that of the official 4G standard. The actual speeds the carriers say they’ll achieve are just a tenth of “real” 4G.

So why are the carriers calling these networks 4G?

It’s mostly a matter of PR, industry experts say. Explaining what the wireless carriers’ new networks should be called, and what they’ll be capable of, is a confusing mess.

To illustrate: Sprint bought a majority stake in Clearwire (CLWR), which uses a new network technology called WiMAX that’s capable of speeds ranging from 3 Mbps to 10 Mbps. That’s a different technology from Verizon’s new network, based on a standard called Long Term Evolution (LTE), which will average 5 Mbps to 12 Mbps.

Seeing what its competitors were up to, T-Mobile opted to increase the speed capabilities of its existing 3G-HSPA+ network instead of pursuing a new technology. Its expanded network — now called 4G — will reach speeds of 5 Mbps to 12 Mbps.

No matter what they’re called, all of these upgrades are clear improvements — and the carriers shelled out billions to make them. Current “3G” networks offer actual speeds that range from between 500 kilobits per second to 1.5 Mbps.

So Sprint and Verizon have new, faster networks that are still technically not 4G, while T-Mobile has an old, though still faster network that is actually based on 3G technology.

Confused yet? That’s why they all just opted to call themselves “4G.”

The carriers get defensive about the topic.

“It’s very misleading to make a decision about what’s 4G based on speed alone,” said Stephanie Vinge-Walsh, spokeswoman for Sprint Nextel. “It is a challenge we face in an extremely competitive industry.”

T-Mobile did not respond to a request for comment.

One network representative, who asked not to be identified, claimed that ITU’s 4G line-in-the-sand is being misconstrued. The organization previously approved the use of the term “4G” for Sprint’s WiMAX and Verizon’s LTE networks, he said — though not for T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network.

ITU’s PR department ignored that approval in its recent statement about how future wireless technologies would be measured, the representative said. ITU representatives were not immediately available for comment.

“I’m not getting into a technical debate,” said Jeffrey Nelson, spokesman for Verizon Wireless. “Consumers will quickly realize that there’s really a difference between the capabilities of various wireless data networks. All ’4G’ is not the same.”

And that’s what’s so difficult. The term 4G has become meaningless and confusing as hell for wireless customers.

For instance, T-Mobile’s 4G network, which is technically 3G, will have speeds that are at least equal to — and possibly faster — than Verizon’s 4G-LTE network at launch. At the same time, AT&T’s 3G network, which is also being scaled up like T-Mobile’s, is not being labeled “4G.”

That’s why some industry experts predict that the term “4G” will soon vanish.

“The labeling of wireless broadband based on technical jargon is likely to fade away in 2011,” said Dan Hays, partner at industry consultancy PRTM. “That will be good news for the consumer. Comparing carriers based on their network coverage and speed will give them more facts to make more informed decisions.”

Hays expects that independent researchers — or the Federal Communications Commission — will step in next year to perform speed and coverage tests.

Meanwhile, don’t expect anyone to hold the carriers’ feet to the fire.

“Historically, ITU’s classification system has not held a great degree of water and has not been used to enforce branding,” Hays said. “Everyone started off declaring themselves to be 4G long before the official decision on labeling was made. The ITU was three to four years too late to make an meaningful impact on the industry’s use of the term.”

Source: http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/01/technology/4g_myth/index.htm

Consumers of portable and computing devices require constant connectivity in order to access the Internet, engage in social networking and share multimedia content. In fact, this consistent connected experience is imperative in today’s digital lifestyle. In-Stat research suggests that this trend represents an opportunity for mobile operators to move beyond the maturing handset market and into connecting emerging wireless device markets, such as e-readers and tablets.

“The emerging tablet market represents one of the strongest opportunities for embedded 3G/4G technology,” says Stephanie Ethier, senior analyst of In-Stat. “Cellular connectivity will also continue to find its way into e-readers, as well. By 2015, 65 per cent of e-readers worldwide will ship with an embedded 3G/4G modem.”

In-Stat’s latest research covers the market for non-traditional cellular-connected devices, and includes forecasts for tablets, e-readers, portable navigation devices (PNDs) and digital photo frames.

In the research, In-Stat also finds out that there were approximately 1.6 crore portable and computing devices shipped with 3G/4G cellular connectivity in 2010. Also, in 2015, it is projected that over 50 per cent of all 3G/4G tablets 2015 will have LTE WAN connectivity and 52 per cent of cellular-connected portable and computing devices in Asia will be GSM devices.

In-Stat also projects that the Asia-Pacific region will experience the highest sustainable growth rate among 3G/4G portable and computing devices throughout the forecast period.

Source:  http://www.eetindia.co.in/ART_8800643093_1800005_NT_39767770.HTM

Nevertheless, rumors are looming in the market about Apple’s interests in the incorporation of the latest 4G LTE technology into their iPhone devices. What is being expected from Apple by their customers is something better than the ‘first come, may come and go’! This is because the 3G technology used in iPhones in China was different from the rest of the world. Is this going to be the case with 4G? Will Apple need to rework on a different 4G LTE world phone?

Following this the next question is who will be the carriers? Verizon and Sprint, both will be betting on the device and this is to follow who is going to make it big on sales? This all means, will iPhone 5 be sporting on this technology? Probably a big ‘yes’.

In addition, Apple will be able to make it big this time unless they have two things for sure, a better 4G LTE technology to offer on a better plan and price!

Source: http://technewsperk.com/electronics/china-iphones-to-feature-4g-technology/

Carriers that use orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) instead of time division multiple access (TDMA) or code division multiple access (CDMA) are increasingly marketing their services as being 4G, even when their data speeds are not as fast as the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) specifies. According to the ITU, a 4G network requires a mobile device to be able to exchange data at 100 Mbit/sec. A 3G network, on the other hand, can offer data speeds as slow as 3.84 Mbit/sec.

From the consumer’s point of view, 4G is more a marketing term than a technical specification, but carriers feel justified in using the 4G label because it lets the consumer know that he can expect significantly faster data speeds.

Although carriers still differ about whether to build 4G data networks using Long Term Evolution (LTE) or Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access WiMAX, all carriers seem to agree that OFDM is one of the chief indicators that a service can be legitimately marketed as being 4G. OFDM is a type of digital modulation in which a signal is split into several narrowband channels at different frequencies. This is more efficient than TDMA, which divides channels into time slots and has multiple users take turns transmitting bursts or CDMA, which simultaneously transmits multiple signals on the same channel.

When fully implemented, 4G is expected to enable pervasive computing, in which simultaneous connections to multiple high-speed networks will provide seamless handoffs throughout a geographical area. Coverage enhancement technologies such as femtocell and picocell are being developed to address the needs of mobile users in homes, public buildings and offices, which will free up network resources for mobile users who are roaming or who are in more remote service areas.