British telecommunications firm, Everything Everywhere (EE), a joint venture of Deutsche Telekom AG (DTE) and France Telecom SA (FTE), has reportedly planned to roll out the Fourth-Generation high speed mobile Internet service (4G) by the end of this year. They are the first operator to announce rollouts for 4G in UK. 

Everything Everywhere operates T-Mobile and Orange in the UK and have said they want to rollout 4G servcies for both the aforementioned providers as well as Three, Virgin and other brands that use EE's network, according to The Guardian.

The company's Chief Executive Officer, Olaf Swantee, has been quoted by Bloomberg as stating EE has applied to regulators to run the faster services on existing airwaves and will start the commercial service on a small scale for mobile broadband access before expanding the actual offering. It has announced that a new 4G test on the 1800Mhz spectrum will commence in Bristol in April.  

"Subject to regulatory approval by springtime, Everything Everywhere will be in a position to roll out 4G services before the end of the year. The service will help the U.K.  to get back in line with other markets," Swantee was quoted as saying to Blomberg.

Long Term Evaluation (LTE) or 4G technology, which is already used in other parts of Europe, the U.S. and Asia, will allow much faster data download speeds and better nationwide coverage. Unfortunately for the UK, 4G rollout was delayed by complaints from several companies over plans drawn up by telecom regulator Ofcom for auctioning off new spectrum.

The telco group has reportedly upgraded 60 per cent of its present network to 3.5G, which increases download speed by about 50 per cent.

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