UK Wireless News
The UK has become one of the most competitive mobile markets in the world and often shows off key trends before they take off elsewhere. After suffering the extremes of the 3G spectrum bubble and bust, the five operators started to consolidate. Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom merged their UK arms to create Everything Everywhere, a new market leader, which overtook Telefonica O2 and Vodafone. The fifth operator is Hutchison 3, which is far smaller than the others but has pursued innovative mobile web strategies and achieved the highest ARPU. Further consolidation is expected, with all five cellcos engaged in network and backhaul sharing deals with partners. The next milestone will be the auctions of 2.6GHz and 800MHz spectrum, expected in 2012, which will pave the way for LTE. The regulator also recently allowed GSM spectrum to be refarmed for 3G and 4G services, though this has created a major debate over whether Vodafone and O2, the holders of the valuable 900MHz frequencies, should be compelled to surrender some licenses to rivals, or be capped in the 800MHz auction.
UK's BT seeks mobile alliance
When UK fixed line incumbent BT acquired 2.6GHz spectrum in the recent 4G auction, it was not expected to use this to challenge the four cellcos in an already overcrowded consumer market. But accordin ...
- FON to help DT blanket Germany with Wi-Fi
- UK auction comes in well under target
- BT will bid in UK auction, but only for 2.6GHz
UK could relax planning laws to speed LTE
9 May, 2013
New proposals support small cells and shared RAN, but also make it easier to add 4G kit to existing sites
UK could get commercial white spaces apps in 2014
29 April, 2013
Regulator Ofcom announces significant trials using the unlicensed spectrum, which should pave way to commercial offerings
Weightless group publishes M2M standard
4 April, 2013
Claims its technology will support white spaces transmissions over 10 kilometers with decade-long battery life
UK operators may need to trade 4G spectrum
18 March, 2013
Sources indicate that some cellcos will lack the capacity they need, perhaps leading to spectrum trades or alliances
Intel buys appMobi team for HMTL5 expertise
23 February, 2013
Smaller firm will now focus only on its cloud services while Intel bids to lead mobile world's shift to web standards
EE fails to capitalize on LTE headstart yet
20 February, 2013
UK's largest cellco reports widened losses on cost of LTE launch and rebrand, plus revenue drop for 2012
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