Race for 4G hots up

Monday 15 December 2014

JT has demonstrated its '4G' mobile phone services ahead of a launch early next year. '4G' offers far quicker data speeds making streaming video, picking up big e-mail attachments and uploading documents to the cloud much easier when using a mobile device.

JT is investing £12m in its new 4G network across the Channel Islands, which the company says will provide a signal everywhere in Jersey. Both Sure and Airtel are also expected to be launching 4G services in competition with JT in 2015.

 JT is replacing all 350 masts in Jersey with new 4G kit which it will be turning on in the New Year, subject to final approvals from the local telecoms regulator, and Ofcom in the UK.

JT has committed to pricing the new 4G services on a par with the current 3G services, although customers will pay for the data they use.

At a demonstration of the new service, JT's Head of Mobile, Tim Knights, explained that since the first GSM mobile network was launched in 1994, data usage by JT customers was now increasing by about 80% every year, mainly driven by streaming video.

Consequently the current 3G network was struggling to cope, and JT said that would be improved too, as part of the installation of 4G. 

Mr Knights said that the new fibre-optic broadband network was integral to the new 4G services, as all the masts which provide the signal, were themselves now connected to the internet via high-speed fibre broadband.

JT demonstrated the new 4G service by setting up two 4k TV's, and then ran an internet speed test on one using the 3G network, with the other working on 4G. They also streamed a video on both services. 

Under test conditions, the 4G signal delivered a download speed of more than 100 Mb per second, and an upload speed of 38 Mb per second. That compared to the 3G service offering 6 Mb per second for downloading, and .59 Mb per second for uploading.