T-Mobile - fastest mobile broadband in UK
3G.co.uk reports today that T-Mobile's mobile broadband network has been judged the best in the UK for the second successive quarter in independent tests carried out by leading test house P3 Solutions.
The tests, released today, benchmark T-Mobile against its competitors by measuring customer experiences that matter most to users during peak usage hours across 16 cities throughout the UK. When measured against its mobile broadband competitors, T-Mobile was found to be fastest by a considerable margin for web browsing, internet upload speeds as well as for sending and receiving emails.
The tests show that in Q4, T-Mobile had the fastest web-browsing experience that on average was 35% faster than the nearest competitor. T-Mobile's top ranking in the P3 Solutions quarterly analysis is supported by a superior upload performance that is 59% quicker than the next best operator. With the popularity of social networking sites continuing to grow, T-Mobile customers who upload photos to Facebook or videos to YouTube will benefit from the fastest overall upload speeds across cities tested in the UK. T-Mobile's Mobile Broadband service is also the best for sending and receiving e-mails with attachments, being fives times faster than all other operators for sending e-mails and twice as fast for e-mail reception.
Labels: mobile broadband, T-Mobile
Eight key mobile technologies for 2009/2010
Gartner says that it has identified eight mobile technologies that will evolve significantly through 2010, impacting short-term mobile strategies and policies.
"All mobile strategies embed assumptions about technology evolution so it's important to identify the technologies that will evolve quickly in the life span of each strategy," said Nick Jones, vice president at Gartner. "The eight mobile technologies that we have pinpointed as ones to watch in 2009 and 2010 will have broad effects and, as such, are likely to pose issues to be addressed by short-term strategies and policies."
Gartner's eight mobile technologies to watch in 2009 and 2010:
- Bluetooth 3.0 -The Bluetooth 3.0 specification will be released in 2009 (at which point its feature set will be frozen), with devices starting to arrive around 2010. Bluetooth 3.0 will likely include features such as ultra-low-power mode that will enable new devices, such as peripherals and sensors, and new applications, such as health monitoring.
- Mobile User Interfaces (UIs) - UIs have a major effect on device usability and supportability. They will also be an area of intense competition in 2009 and 2010, with manufacturers using UIs to differentiate their handsets and platforms. New and more-diverse UIs will complicate the development and support of business-to-employee (B2E) and business-to-consumer (B2C) applications.
- Location Sensing - Location awareness makes mobile applications more powerful and useful; in the future, location will be a key component of contextual applications. Location sensing will also enhance systems, such as mobile presence and mobile social networking.
- 802.11n - 802.11n boosts Wi-Fi data rates to between 100 Mbps and 300 Mbps, and the multiple-input, multiple-output technology used by 802.11n offers the potential for better coverage in some situations. 802.11n is likely to be a long-lived standard that will define Wi-Fi performance for several years. High-speed Wi-Fi is desirable to stream media around the home and office.
- Display Technologies - Displays constrain many characteristics of both mobile devices and applications. During 2009 and 2010, several new display technologies will impact the marketplace, including active pixel displays, passive displays and pico projectors. Pico projectors enable new mobile use cases (for example, instant presentations projected on a desktop to display information in a brief, face-to-face sales meeting).
- Mobile Web and Widgets - The mobile Web is emerging as a low-cost way to deliver simple mobile applications to a range of devices. It has some limitations that will not be addressed by 2010 (for example, there will be no universal standards for browser access to handset services, such as the camera or GPS). However, the mobile Web offers a compelling total cost of ownership (TCO) advantage over thick-client applications. Widgets (small mobile Web applets) are supported by many mobile browsers, and provide a way to stream simple feeds to handsets and small screens.
- Cellular Broadband - Wireless broadband exploded in 2008, driven by the availability of technologies such as high-speed downlink packet access and high-speed uplink packet access, combined with attractive pricing from cellular operators. The performance of high-speed packet access (HSPA) provides a megabit or two of bandwidth in uplink and downlink directions, and often more. In many regions, HSPA provides adequate connectivity to replace Wi-Fi "hot spots," and the availability of mature chipsets enables organizations to purchase laptops with built-in cellular modules that provide superior performance to add-on cards or dongles.
- Near Field Communication (NFC) - NFC provides a simple and secure way for handsets to communicate over distances of a centimeter or two. NFC is emerging as a leading standard for applications such as mobile payment, with successful trials conducted in several countries. It also has wider applications, such as "touch to exchange information" (for example, to transfer an image from a handset to a digital photo frame, or for a handset to pick up a virtual discount voucher).
Labels: industry insight, mobile broadband
HSPA+ rollout likely prior migration to LTE
A significant number of mobile operators will be upgrading from HSPDA to HSPA+ technology as an interim stop gap before eventually migrating to LTE, according to the latest report from EJL Wireless Research entitled "3GPP Release 7 HSPA+ (Evolved HSPA) Network Migration Analysis."
"LTE technology remains on the longer term horizon but HSPA+ is here and now. The increase of UMTS downlink speeds of up to 21Mbps peak will significantly improve the consumer's mobile broadband experience." said founder and President Earl Lum.
"Given the economic uncertainty through 2009 and 2010, it is clear that mobile operators will upgrade to HSPA+ technology during 2009-2011." said Lum.
The full report is currently available for purchase and information can be downloaded at
ejlwireless.com.
Labels: haspa+, industry insight, LTE, mobile broadband
BT to re-enter mobile market?
BT is considering plans to form a joint venture with T-Mobile and 3 Mobile.
Eight years ago, BT spun off its mobile arm, Cellnet, in a bid to raise capital to cut its debt. Cellnet went on to become O2 and was acquired in 2007 by Telefonica for the £18 billion.
T-Mobile and 3 already share their radio networks and have signed a number of agreements; the most significant of which was a new company they both created in December 2007 called Mobile Broadband Network limited. The trio have already worked together with T-mobile and 3 agreeing with BT to use their 21CN solution.
BT tried to launch a mobile network a few years ago, called Fusion as it partnered with Vodafone to become an MVNO. It proved to be a costly mistake with less than 50,000 customers signing over two years.
BT doesn't have much of a choice. It is possibly the only big telecommunications company in the world that doesn't have a powerful mobile arm and this is leaving it vulnerable to competitors and the acceleration of mobile broadband takeup.
Labels: BT Mobile, industry insight
