With the objective of repeating the success of the GSM standard, today used by 80 percent of worldwide mobile networks, the European Union (EU) is announcing it will invest 18 million euros in research that will underpin 4th generation (4G) mobile networks, particularly the advanced version of LTE technology (Long Term Evolution), which has the potential to increase the speeds of mobile Internet to up to 1 Gigabit (thousand megabits) per second.
The first step in this ultra high-speed mobile Internet project will be taken as early as September when the European Commission (EC) will start to negotiate details with the project consortia, including ARTIST4G that builds on the achievements of the WINNER projects and unites 4G industry and researchers from Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The launch of these new projects is scheduled for January 2010.
Currently, LTE technology, which enables speeds of 100 Megabits per second, ten times that of existing 3rd generation mobile networks (3G/WCDMA and HSPA, for example), is being trialled by mobile operators in Finland, Germany, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. It is expected that the technology will be available commercially first of all in Sweden and Norway during the first half of 2010, and market analysts expect operators around the world to invest about 6 billion euros in LTE equipment by 2013. Meanwhile, the sector's major mobile operators and manufacturers, such as Orange, TeliaSonera, T-Mobile, AT&T, NTT-DoCoMo, Verizon, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia Siemens Networks, have already committed to using the LTE standard.
Further information:
- EU invests a fresh € 18 million in future ultra high-speed mobile internet http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/1238&format=HTML&aged=0&language=PT&guiLanguage=en
- The Network of the Future: an essential infrastructure for our society http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/future-networks/
- Project WINNER http://www.ist-winner.org/
