Next generation mobile broadband will compete with fixed-line, says Vodafone

The focus is back on the next generation of mobile broadband this week, and it seems everyone has an opinion on the subject. 

At the recent Wireless 2.0 conference, Vodafone's group R&D director Professor Michael Walker commented that the next generation of mobile broadband - a technology called Long Term Evolution (or LTE) - would easily match the speeds of fixed-line broadband connections. With Fibre to the Home (FTTH) technology promising speeds of 100Mb that's a tall order, but in fact the theoretical top speed for LTE is 150Mb, and the technology has been tested to this speed.

However, Professor Walker also pointed out that Vodafone wants to be sure that LTE can fulfil its promises before it makes any major investments. He said “3G was going to give 1Mb but in some places you were lucky to get 300Kbit/s. It’s not going to be like that with LTE.”

It's believed that the number of LTE networks will increase substantially over the next five years, with the number of subscribers estimated to exceed 100 million by 2014, according to a new report from Juniper Research. However, the timescale for widespread adoption is a medium-term one, according to the research - with multiple millions of subscribers by 2011 but the main consumer uptake predicted in 2012/2013.

So the message is: it's coming, but we're not sure how fast it will be in the real world, and you won't be getting it until 2012 in any case. We suggest you don't hold your breath.