It appears as though Everything Everywhere may not be alone in implementing 4G next month, "as part of the commitments given when the European Commission approved the merger of Orange and T-Mobile in the UK in March 2010, Everything Everywhere was required to divest 2X15MHz of its 1800MHz spectrum," stated an Everything Everywhere spokesperson.
It was revealed today that, as part of the Ofcom agreement allowing Everything Everywhere to push forward with 4G services, that the group would sell these 30MHz to Three, reducing the complexity of spectrum bidding at the end of the year, as previously Ofcom intended to reserve spectrum for newcomer Three, much to the upset of other providers.
"Acquiring this spectrum will more than double the capacity available to customers on our network. We have seen a huge growth in data consumption with average mobile handset customer usage now more than 1.1GB per month. Three has led the market in the significant growth of mobile data consumption and the shift to consumer use of smartphones to access the internet. New spectrum, supported by further committed technology spend, is a clear signal that we are committed to maintain our lead as the network built for the mobile internet." stated Three CEO, Dave Dyson.
With this news, it's highly likely that both Three and Everything Everywhere engineers will be busy upgrading base stations next month, ready for 4G. For Three this is particularly good news, as the firm was fast reaching the maximum capacity of its network. The extra spectrum and the improved performance of 4G will offer significant room to maneuver.
