Need advice? Call our experts free on
0800 090 1342
O2 to trial 4G mobile broadband in London
Areas such as Canary Wharf and Kings Cross have been included in O2's new trial of 4G mobile services.
More than 25 4G sites will go live across the capital this month, bringing faster mobile browsing speeds to a 40km sq area that stretches from Hyde Park to The O2 venue in Greenwich.
Several key areas of the city, such as Canary Wharf, Soho, Westminster, South Bank and Kings Cross, are included in the pilot scheme.
The trial will be conducted with the use of mobile broadband dongles manufactured by Samsung, which will be distributed to those taking part in the initiative. Speeds of up to 100Mbps are supported by the device.
According to O2, participants will potentially be able to download a 500MB file in less than one minute - a process that would take more than five minutes using a 3G service.
In total, over 1,000 individuals are expected to take part in the project, along with several high-profile partners including department store chain John Lewis, the Institution of Engineering and Technology, and tech news site Gizmodo UK.
Ronan Dunne, chief executive of O2 UK, was quoted by the Guardian as saying: "There's no doubt that the mobile networks will have the capacity to support everything being connected.
"We will start the dialogue with business about what are the new use cases, putting on to mobile what we used to do on fixed line in the past."
The launch of the carrier's super-fast mobile broadband trial comes shortly after the government's head of spectrum and broadband policy Simon Towler called for the auction of spectrum for 4G services to take place "as soon as possible".
Speaking at a Westminster eForum last week, Mr Towler said "more spectrum, more masts or both" will be required to improve mobile speeds, PC Pro reported.