O2 to launch 4G in UK on 29th August 2013

Mobile network O2 has announced that its 4G service will launch in the UK on 29 August.

The new network, which it claims will be up to five times faster than 3G, will be switched on in London, Leeds and Bradford first, followed by a further 10 cities before the end of 2013.

O2, which is owned by Spain's Telefonica, aims to make the service available to five million people on launch and an additional two million people per month thereafter. It aims for its 4G network to reach 98 per cent of the UK population by 2015.

It will be the second 4G network to launch in the UK, after EE, which launched its 4G services to 20 million people eight months ago across 11 cities.

O2 will therefore be playing catch-up with EE, which has also already rolled out "double-speed" 4G in 15 cities, and stated that by the end of June, it had 687,000 customers signed up to its new network.

O2 invested £550m to secure the 800MHz spectrum at the 4G auction earlier this year, but was tight-lipped on a launch date. It has, however, beaten rivals Vodafone and Three in launching 4G, and claimed that it will be differentiating itself by "bringing to life the digital experience for its customers".

It said this would start with 12 months free music content for consumers that buy a 4G tariff directly from O2.

The mobile operator will offer 4G phones such as the Sony Xperia SP, Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One, Nokia Lumia 925 and the BlackBerry Z10. The iPhone 5 will not initially be offered on O2's 4G network.

O2's cheapest tariff will be £26 per month, but details on what is included in the tariff and what alternatives will be available are yet to be disclosed. In comparison, EE's cheapest tariff is £21 per month, albeit with a capped data limit of just 500MB. 

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Freeview to be nudged down to clear 5G bands in 2018

Freeview will get bumped down the dial to make way for 5G networks around 2018, but in the meantime we'll get a bunch more HD TV and plenty of White Space to play in.

Ofcom has confirmed proposals, published in August, to shuffle Freeview down the dial and clear space at 700MHz for more next-next-generation wireless broadband services. But that's not going to happen for another five years, so in the meantime Freeview will be permitted to run a few extra multiplexes while the White Space crowd will get five more years to show what they can do.

The 600Mhz band is empty 'cos when the UK went digital it contracted the frequencies being used in both directions. That left a gap at the top - the 800MHz band to be auctioned off next year - and at the bottom - the 600MHz band no one wants. So unloved is 600MHz that in August Ofcom suggested shuffling Freeview down to release more space at the top for LTE services.

This would open up the 700MHz band, which is being used for 4G in the USA, notably supported by the New iPad, but is also being deployed in Africa and looks likely to spread elsewhere. But clearing it will mean retuning all the Freeview boxes, again, and replacing some roof-top aerials as the propagation characteristics change.

FreeView Channels

It will also have an impact on the work of DMSL, as Digital Mobile Spectrum Limited is tasked with spending £150m to mitigate against 4G signals (at 800MHz) interfering with Freeview (at 700MHz). Shuffle Freeview away and that problem disappears only to be replaced by the same thing only further down the dial, which might hit the same people, but equally might not.

UK terrestrial broadcasting is almost entirely handled by Arqiva, which was quick to comment on the proposals:
"While Arqiva welcomes Ofcom’s clear long-term commitment to ensuring a robust future for Freeview, Ofcom has yet to make the case for this change and the huge disruption that would be caused to TV viewers as a result."

Ofcom's justification is the oft-touted increase in demand for data, which is predicted to ramp up by 80 times before 2030. The problem with those predictions is that they're based on the "if current trends continue" model, the same one which says that by 2019 one in three of us will be working as an Elvis impersonator, but in reality the appetite for inferior renditions of The King tops out just like the demand for bandwidth will.

But Ofcom won't be swayed, so the question becomes what to do with the 600MHz band in the meantime. Back in August we suggested it should be thrown over to the White Space crowd to play with, on the grounds they they're a burgeoning industry in which the UK is a leader, and the database approach means they can move out at very short notice. Somewhat to our surprise Ofcom considered that, but decided to also stick a couple of national multiplexes in too so we can have some more Freeview channels even if they'll have to be switched off come 2018.

Ofcom's proposals (PDF, quite interesting but very long) aren't fixed yet, and there will need to be more details provided, but it's looking like we'll have another spectrum auction within a decade, and that terrestrial TV will again be shoved aside to make room for it.

Read the full article here: FreeView Nudge  or contact our experts in IT Support at Click Networks to find out what this will mean for you or your company. Visit our Click Networks website here: http://www.clicknetworks.co.uk/