[GTER] EU invests millions in high-speed mobile internet

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Movimentos de um gigante, para quem não viu ...

[]s, Julião

EU invests millions in high-speed mobile internet

Aug 18, 2009

www.yahoo.com

BRUSSELS (AFP) - The European Union announced Tuesday an 18 million euro
(25 million dollar) investment in an "ultra high-speed" internet system
to underpin the next generation of mobile services.

"Europe's research know-how will continue to set the tone for the
development of mobile services and devices around the globe, just as we
did in the past decades with the GSM standard," promised EU Telecoms
Commissioner Viviane Reding.

The funding will be released on January 1 next year for research on what
is known as Long Term Evolution (LTE) Advanced technology, the high end
of the fourth generation of mobile technology which should offer users
"mobile internet speeds up to a hundred times faster than current 3G
networks," according to the European Commission.

The new LTE technology, not the advanced version which the EU will fund,
is currently being trialled by mobile operators in Finland, Germany,
Norway, Spain, Sweden and Britain and is expected to be commercially
available in Sweden and Norway in the first half of next year.

That will provide mobile internet speeds of up to 100 megabits per
second, 10 times faster than the 3G mobile networks.

"LTE technologies will turn mobile phones into powerful mobile
computers. Millions of new users will get ultra high-speed internet
access on their portable devices, wherever they are," Reding enthused.

LTE Advanced promises lower prices and mobile broadband speeds up to one
gigabit (thousand megabits) per second.

This would allow excellent mobile access to televisions and
video-on-demand systems for example.

Between 2004 and 2007, the EU gave 25 million euros to LTE development.
leading to the first blueprint for an LTE-based network infrastructure.

The 18 million euros will go to the enhanced version, LTE Advanced.

Next month the commission will open negotiations on the details with
project consortia, including the flagship ARTIST4G which united 4G
industry and researchers from Britain, Finland, France, Germany, Italy,
the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden.

The new projects are expected to begin in January.

LTE uses radio spectrum more efficiently, enabling mobile networks to
benefit from the "digital dividend" and use frequencies freed by the
switchover from analogue to digital TV.

Overall, from 2007-2013 the EU will invest more than 700 million euros
on researching future networks.

Leading mobile operators and manufacturers around the world such as
Orange, T-Mobile, Ericsson, and Nokia have already committed to using
the LTE standard. By 2013, operators worldwide are expected to invest
nearly six billion euros in LTE equipment, according to market analysts.
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