The rollout of LTE services in Europe has been a deliberate process, with only a handful of innovative operators having launched services in select market. This latency in LTE deployments has been partially blamed on spectrum constraints as many countries have only just recently or are still in the planning stages of providing the vital airwaves needed to support new networks.
United Kingdom-based Everything Everywhere, a joint venture between German Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile and France Telecom’s Orange, this week laid out its plans for LTE services, noting it expects to have a network online later this year.
The carrier is currently trialing LTE services using its 800 MHz spectrum holdings in Cornwall, with plans to add a trial using its 1.8 GHz spectrum assets in the Bristol area in April. Those trials are using spectrum holdings currently reserved for commercial use for 2G and 3G services.
Everything Everywhere rival O2 began LTE trials across portions of London late last year using 2.6 GHz spectrum under a “test and development” license from the country’s Ofcom regulator.
Ofcom has said it expects to auction off 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz spectrum later this year to support LTE rollouts. The 800 MHz spectrum is to be re-farmed from the country’s move to digital television, with proposals that would require spectrum license winners to provide LTE coverage to match that of current 2G networks. The government has said it would look into helping fund the rollout of LTE to underserved areas of the country.
On its way to launching LTE, Everything Everywhere said it would first roll out the 21 megabit per second variation of the HSPA+ standard across the United Kingdom that it said would “lay the foundation for a new digital backbone for Britain.” That rollout has already been completed across 60% of its network, with network-wide coverage expected by the third quarter of this year. The carrier is also looking to trial the 42 Mbps version of HSPA+ during the second quarter, with plans to upgrade to that standard beginning in the fourth quarter.
That digital backbone will include plans to expand the use of Ethernet backhaul in order to support the increased network capabilities.
All of this is going on as the two parent companies continue to integrate their offering following their announced JV in mid-2010.
Everything Everywhere CEO Olaf Swantee, noted in a statement that the move to LTE would put the United Kingdom onto equal footing with other parts of Europe, the United States and Asia.
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