The telecoms firm has invested £15 million in the system, which is being installed by Nokia Networks and will give Islanders faster mobile network speeds.
Airtel say the whole of St Helier and the seafront to St Aubin now have 4G coverage, as do a number of areas in and near St Brelade, St Peter, the Airport, St Lawrence, Gorey, St Saviour and St Clement, and new sites are becoming active at a rate of four or five a week.
David Fowler, chief technical officer at Airtel-Vodafone, said: ‘Our £15 million investment in our 4G network is globally the most advanced 4G ecosystem ever installed by our network partners, Nokia Networks.
‘We launched our first 4G site in Jersey in May and now have a number of sites live in the Island from which our customers are seeing the benefits of an improved browsing experience on their mobile devices.’
He added: ‘We chose Nokia Networks because of their roadmap towards 5G and beyond, and the benefits that this type of mobile technology can bring to consumers, businesses and government departments in Jersey in terms of connectivity and cost efficiencies.
‘The average household today has three connected devices and this is expected to rise to 20 by 2020.’
LTE stands for ‘Long Term Evolution’ and is commonly termed as 4G, which stands for ‘fourth generation’. The term 3G (third generation) network will be familiar to most people who have a mobile as that is the frequency that carries data that currently shows on their phone.
What will the new faster services mean?
The 4G LTE frequency carries more information and can provide access to a whole range of new activities, such as playing multiplayer games on the go. In effect, it means that the phone does not have to be tethered to the home any more to receive high-speed data services, and you will be able to browse the internet anywhere without speed limitations.
Tie-ins with home broadband packages will also mean that customers can start watching a movie at home on the TV or computer and seamlessly continue where they left off with their phone when they leave the house.
And programmes such as the video phone service Skype are likely to become more popular on the move with a more reliable signal.
The technical changes
4G is designed for data and is a ‘flatter’ signal that is more efficient to get information into a mobile device such an iPhone or a Samsung Galaxy Note. The delivery system saves on battery life and consumes less data to perform the same functions.
As a result, new equipment has had to be installed by telecoms companies and significant investments made.
Why 4G is important
The introduction of 4G LTE is important, as speed of data downloads to devices effectively dictates what someone can do on the move. At present the speeds currently available over the 3G network have limitations and some gaming and broadcast platforms cannot easily be accessed.
LTE will significantly increase the delivery speed and it is likely that speeds of 20 megabits per second will be normally available. That is faster than many fixed line data packages that Islanders have in their homes at present. The average range in the UK for 3G is from 1 to 4 Mbps, reaching 8 to 9 Mbps in some places. The new faster speeds should allow for a significant improvement on what people can do on the move.
