Everything Everywhere and BT Wholesale join forces for first UK LTE trial

The UK will finally get a taste of LTE following the announcement that Everything Everywhere and BT Wholesale are to combine for a live trial of the technology. The trial will begin in September and is set to run into early next year. It will take place in the St Newlyn East area of South Newquay, Cornwall.

The trial will make use of 2 x 10MHz of 800MHz spectrum, which is well suited for deployment in rural areas that might otherwise have little or no broadband connectivity. The equipment suppliers will be Nokia Siemens Networks and Huawei with support from the Cornwall Development Company.

The trial will cover an area of 25 square kilometres and bring broadband for the first time to over 700 premises. Everything Everywhere, which is a joint venture between Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom, and operates the T-Mobile and Orange brands in the UK,  said that it will test both mobile handsets and broadband dongles as part of the trial but did not specify models or suppliers.

BT has already been conducting trials in its test labs at Adastral Park in Suffolk but the Cornwall trial will be the first time that LTE has been tested live in the UK. The UK will have to wait some time for LTE networks to be widely deployed though, with Ofcom not set to auction 800MHz and 2.6GHz spectrum until 2012.

“Our ambition is to have the best 4G network and be pioneers in enabling Britain’s superfast wireless future,” said Tom Alexander, CEO, of Everything Everywhere, in a statement.

“We strongly believe that, by sharing our network and mobile assets in this way, we can make a valuable contribution to the economics of rural broadband services”, Alexander said. “Our work with BT is providing a test bed for new technologies such as 4G LTE which, with the correct allocation of sub 1GHz spectrum from the Government, has the potential to make a real impact on the way in which we communicate in the future.”

Sally Davis, CEO of BT Wholesale, said: “BT is committed to bringing the highest speed broadband to everyone in the UK, whether that’s over fibre, copper or airwaves. The expectation of what we will learn is truly exciting, as much for the customers who are unable to get a broadband service in a number of rural communities across the country.”

Anyone in the area that wants to take part in the trial can do so by registering their interest at www.4Gwirelessbroadbandtrial.co.uk.

The fourth annual LTE North America Conference takes place in Texas, US, November 8-9