BT Set To Trial LTE To Bridge Rural Not Spots

BT Wholesale and mobile operator Everything Everywhere have teamed up to trial Long Term Evolution (LTE) 4G technology, as the UK carrier seeks ways to bridge so called broadband ‘not spots’ in rural areas.

The trial is set to begin in September and last until the end of the year. It will take place in Newquay, Cornwall, and comes on the back on BT’s £132 million scheme announced last September to roll out superfast broadband to 90 percent of homes in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.

BT revealed in March that so far it had connected more than 1,000 Cornish homes and businesses to its super-fast broadband service.

Broadband Extension

“BT is basically investigating lots of ways to extend faster broadband into rural areas,” a BT spokeswoman told eWEEK Europe UK. “LTE is one technology we are trialling with Everything Everywhere.”

“BT’s view is that fixed line is still the best solution in terms of delivering faster broadband speed, but in some circumstances we do see a role for satellite and wireless technologies such as LTE to bridge the gap. This is a small scale trial to test the viable of this technology in rural areas.”

According to Everything Everywhere, the field trial will be the first of its kind in the UK to involve up to 100 mobile and 100 fixed line customers living around the St Newlyn East area of South Newquay, Cornwall.

And although the trial is only scheduled to begin in September, it seems that an initial test at BT’s laboratories at Adastral Park in Suffolk is already underway.

The field trial however is looking to establish what will be the realistic achievable 4G broadband data speeds outside of laboratory conditions. And it seeks to establish whether LTE will be a better option for those customers who currently get low speeds or are unable to get broadband altogether.

Freed Up Spectrum

Essentially the trial is made possible because of the freeing up of spectrum following the switch off of the old TV analogue signal. The field trial will utilise 2 x 10MHz of test 800MHz spectrum.

According to Everything Everywhere, the trial will encompass a combined coverage area of 25 square kilometres, with approximately 700 premises which have no or limited access to broadband services today. Everything Everywhere will also look to test 4G enabled mobile handsets and broadband dongles as part of the trial.

Residents in the St Newlyn East and surrounding areas who wish to participate in the trial can register their interest here.

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

WiMax Dying?

“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,” he added.

“BT is committed to bringing the highest speed broadband to everyone in the UK, whether that’s over fibre, copper or airwaves,” said Sally Davis, CEO of BT Wholesale. “This is a great mixed economy example of innovation and collaboration by two organisations pushing the boundaries of technology for the benefit of customers.”

The trial comes as one of the main backers of rival 4G technology, WiMax, announced its intension to jump ship and adopt LTE instead. Clearwire, a US wireless ISP will eventually transition from a WiMax-based 4G network to an LTE.

And research firm IHS iSuppli has also predicted that LTE will begin overtaking WiMax by as early as next year.

That said, LTE has so far only been seen in the UK via operator tests.

O2 announced in March for example that its small LTE trial in Slough was capable of handling the same volume of mobile traffic as its entire 3G network. It should be noted that O2′s LTE trial has been ongoing for a while now. The operator revealed in December 2009 that it was testing LTE in Slough (its UK headquarters) in partnership with Huawei.