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The highly anticipated 4G network licenses have now been granted to Channel Island operators and JT is progressing with plans to launch its multi-million pound state-of-the-art 4G network in Guernsey.
JT’s investment in the new network means that Guernsey customers can begin to experience the benefits of 4G and once connected can enjoy 100% faster data connections and better quality streaming on video-calling apps such as Facetime and Skype. For the typical 4G user, download speeds will be at least twice as fast as the speed currently available on the existing 3G network.
This means that on JT’s 4G network a music album that currently could take around six minutes to download using the 3G network could take less than three minutes. This is based on existing 3G speeds being 4Mbit/s on average and 4G speed being 8Mbit/s.
In parallel, JT has also taken the opportunity to implement a new 3G service called U900 meaning customers will see a significant improvement in the coverage of their 3G data services across the islands too. Furthermore, every mobile site across the Channel Islands will provide 3G speeds of 42Mb as JT continues to roll out the new network, where previously these speeds were only available in congested areas, such as St Peter Port’s town centre.
JT’s Dave Newbold, Chief Operations and Technology Officer, said: “We’re delighted to introduce our new 4G network and improvements to our 2G and 3G services. We’ve invested over £12 million in a state-of-the-art Long Term Evolution (LTE) Advanced 4G network, drastically improving mobile data services for Islanders. Our new network is expandable and can be regularly upgraded to ensure we can take advantage of any new advancement in mobile technology, such as 5G as and when it becomes available. The new network also ensures excellent connections in buildings, or in areas where the signal is currently not as strong. Combining our new 4G network and our superfast fibre‐ optic networks together means that people here in Jersey now has access to unrivalled seamless coverage, wherever they are.”
“Over the past few months we have been busy replacing our entire mobile network and during this significant upgrade to the individual phone masts, there have inevitably been some brief periods of disruption. We have carefully planned the works to coincide with periods when usage is at its lowest and as such hope customers are not noticing a disruption to service. However, our priority still remains to make certain that our customers are kept informed of works at all times and to this end we will continue to publish regular updates on our http://www.jtglobal.com/4G website to inform customers of which individual sites are being replaced and when.”
The majority of Smartphone handsets will work on JT’s network automatically; however, Samsung and LG are preventing their handsets from being used on 4G networks until certain tests have been carried out to satisfy them that there are no operational issues. JT has worked with both manufacturers to ensure testing is carried out smoothly and the delay in developing appropriate software updates is kept to the minimum.
