Arqiva, the media services company behind SeeSaw (an excellent UK TV streaming website), has teamed up with Alcatel-Lucent to conduct a high speed (50Mbps+) trial of next generation Mobile Broadband technology in the west of Wales .

The trial will deploy LTE technology in the Preseli Mountains using 800MHz radio spectrum, which has been freed up as part of a Digital Switchover from the old analogue TV spectrum (due for completion in 2012). It mirrors an almost identical trial on the Caradon Hill area of East Cornwall, which is being conducted by Clear Mobitel (here).

It's understood that the Preseli Mountains communities are somewhat dispersed and have low population densities, which can't be reached economically through existing fixed line ISP networks. The trial aims to demonstrate the economic and technical viability of a neutral-host wireless network (i.e. it will offer wholesale access to ISPs) as a route to extending broadband coverage into 'NotSpot' locations.


According to Arqiva, 10% of UK households reside in areas that cannot receive broadband download speeds of 2Mbps, although we suspect that the real-world figure is a lot higher due to poor home wiring, fixed line faults, ISP congestion and many other factors.

So far LTE is proving itself to be quite a flexible solution and one that won't just be the preserve of large mobile network operators. Recent trials have shown that it is even becoming favourable as an alternative to Wi-Fi, at least in certain situations.

The only other alternative for such communities would be Satellite , which suffers from higher latency and usually higher costs too. However at present we don't have enough detail about the consumer costs of Arqiva's trial, which make it impossible to conduct a fair comparison.