Posted: 29th Jun, 2011 By: MarkJ


Telecoms manufacturer
Ericsson has demonstrated the future evolution of Mobile Broadband services, also known as
LTE Advanced ( 4G ), to consumers in
Sweden (
Kista) where it managed to deliver
download speeds of up to 1Gbps (Gigabits per second).
Crucially the
International Telecommunication Union (ITU) states that a Mobile Broadband service can only describe itself as 4G if it is able to deliver a peak download speed of up to approximately 100Mbps in a high mobility environment (i.e. mobile phone access) and up to 1Gbps (1024Mbps) in a low mobility one (i.e. local wireless access).
Ulf Ewaldsson, Ericsson's Vice President and Head of Product Area Radio, said:
"Ericsson encourages all regulators to allocate harmonized spectrum as early as possible. The next step of LTE enhances the current service offering, performance and data speed even further. It provides operators with the opportunity to capitalize further on their existing infrastructure. Once again, Ericsson is committed to supporting operators' needs as expectations and requirements for mobile broadband services increase."
The demo made use of commercial hardware and operated off a test frequency (3 x 20MHz) that had been provided by the
Swedish Post and Telecom Agency (PTS).
First generation LTE services, which have yet to enter commercial service in the UK and won't really begin to surface until the end of 2013 (
Ofcom's Spectrum Auction Timetable), are likely to offer far lower but still significantly improved performance above what exists today. It's still far too early to say what the real-world performance will be like, although download speeds of 8Mbps to 30Mbps are not beyond the bounds of reason.