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3UK has announced that it is planning to have 14.4Mbps speeds rolled out across the UK by 2010. Currently it has 3.6Mbps rolled out to 95% of the population, and the intermediate step of 7.2Mbps will come sometime between now and 2010, depending on where you live.
Of course, the thing with these numbers is that they are largely coverage/user dependent – if you don’t got good coverage, or you are in a busy cell, I shouldn’t expect anything like these numbers. In fact, reading some of the comments from 3 Mobile Broadband users, they seem to suggest that the uplink rates (which are usually less than downlink, but should still be respectable) are actually throttled to a very low number- which isn’t really what the messaging of this announcement is trying to convey.
Right now there seems to be a bit of a backlash against any sort of advertised ‘possible speeds’, and also toward the ‘unlimited usage’ policies that always have a caveat of ‘within fair use limits!’ in small print.
Overall, I think there might have to be a paradigm shift soon where Operators focus on quality – both in the sense of network capacity, but also of customer care – rather than the maximum theoretical speeds of a given service
[Via: The Register]
About The Author
Ben Robinson
Ben is a 10+ year veteran of the Mobile industry – starting his career when SMS was a still a relatively new concept for most people (!), he has now consulted on everything from bleeding-edge Mobile content, to the next-gen accessories you might view it on. As a result he has a broad and deep knowledge in numerous areas of Mobile – from network operators to device vendors, to infrastructure and middleware vendors (not to mention content delivery) – and has worked for companies in all of these areas! He is based in the UK, a hotbed of activity for mobile, and recently became a father for the second time – as oppose to in his younger years when he was happy spend time tweaking all manner of mobile devices to 'nth' degree, he now looks for services and hardware that provide the most efficient, compact, and reliable improvements to his already manic life! It’s his opinion that Mobile solutions should be there to help to make your life better – if a particular solution (be it service or device) isn’t doing this, he believes you need to ask the very important question of why you continue to use it... His focus at IntoMobile is mainly on Mobile content, services, and infrastructure, particularly as regards the UK market – and with the occasional look at devices. Additionally, using his extensive experience in the industry, he will provide commentary on the industry at large, with regular (and hopefully thought-provoking) articles.
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Brendan
