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Ever since Vivienne Reding took over the reigns as EU Telecoms Commissioner, Brussels has been startling proactive in pushing for increased competition and innovation across member states, and Tuesday's announcement that the organisation will pump EUR 18 million ($25 million) into next generation LTE research is in keeping with this spirit.

The funding will be released next January for research into LTE Advanced, a fourth generation technology which promises mobile internet speed of 1Gbps, compared to the current flavour of LTE which can do 100Mbps. Naturally, these are theoretical maximums which means that real world performance will bear no resemblance to those figures.

It is tempting to be cynical about bureaucrats becoming involved in funding development of a commercial technology but it's arguable that such an approach bequeathed GSM to the world - a standard which most would agree has turned the world mobile at a rate impossible to predict when the first GSM network launched back in 1991. The Commission is well aware of this achievement: "Europe's research know-how will continue to set the tone for the development of mobile services and devices around the globe, just as we did in the past decades with the GSM standard," Reding promised.

The Commission will start to negotiate the details on how the money will be doled out in September, and projects funded with the money are expected to start in early 2010.

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