O2 UK, the British subsidiary of Spanish Telecom giant Telefonica (TEF), has successfully completed first field trial of its 4G network based on the Long Term Evolution (“LTE”) mobile broadband technology.

The test was launched in O2 UK’s home market Slough, Berkshire, leveraging the infrastructure support provided by Chinese vendor Huawei Technologies. The trial achieved peak downlink speeds of 150 megabits per second (Mbps) while running high-bandwidth applications such as high-definition video streaming, mobile gaming and video conferencing. A larger network launch is expected in late 2010.

Telefonica unveiled the details of a large-scale field trial project in Oct 2009 for 4G LTE network services. The company will test run its 4G LTE network in Spain, UK, Germany and the Czech Republic in Europe, while the Latin American trials are slated to be staged in Brazil and Argentina. The outcome of the trials will help Telefonica chalk out the next phase of network deployment strategy. The company completed the LTE trial in Madrid, Spain, in April 2009 which has demonstrated encouraging throughput levels.

To facilitate the trial projects, Telefonica has selected six technology providers: Alcatel-Lucent (ALU), Ericsson (ERIC), Huawei, NEC, Nokia Siemens and ZTE. Telefonica plans to deliver peak downlink speeds of 340 Mbps, which is difficult to achieve in a practical setting as the available bandwidth will be shared by the company’s huge customer base.

Leading carriers across the globe have adopted LTE as the base technology standard for their 4G network upgrade initiatives due to its fast data transfer capability and ability to handle bandwidth-intensive applications. LTE offers rapid downlink speeds that average 100 Mbps and are faster than other leading 4G standards including WiMax. Swedish telecom operator TeliaSonera AB (TLSN) recently became the first carrier in the world to launch 4G services (in Stockholm and Oslo) based on LTE.

By moving to the 4G LTE network, Telefonica will offer its customers superfast mobile broadband experience, representing an encouraging opportunity to improve customer retention. Moreover, the ultra high-bandwidth multimedia data applications enabled by the 4G LTE network will boost revenues per user through increased minutes of use.

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