Telia is planning to build the next generation mobile network called 4G, and they think they will be the first company in the world to offer its services. A service which is said to be ten times faster than 3g! In Sweden, Ericsson will be developing the technology, where as in Oslo, Norway, chinese Huawei got the deal. Though Ericsson already started building the LTE network there.

Erik Hallberg at TeliaSonera says there will be a commercial launch in 2010 and that they hope to launchvery early that year.

The 4G network technology is also called LTE, but it seems I won’t be having the pleasure of ever using it, unless I go to Stockholm or whatever city they might choose to include in their launch. They say they will be delivering it to high population density areas only, which exclude me. Like I covered in an earlier article about Telia, I can’t even get 3G reception in my house, nor my summer house. Seems I’m pretty much off the map. The Tech Map. Yeah, I get 3G reception a few yards outside my house…

Everyday there’s a struggle going on in my head about what is really going on in the world, or more specifically in Sweden, as of late. We’ve always been early adopters of technology and often somewhat pioneering some fields. We have 7.2Mbit mobile broadband/3G network (a.k.a. 3.5G a.k.a. Turbo 3G), 24Mbit ADSL broadband for many, many homes via the standard phone jack, 100Mbit and hell, 1Gbit connections for the lucky few.

The struggle that is going on in my head is this: I can not get any what so ever 3G reception for any of my cell phones in my own house, which is by no means located out in the woods. Heck, more often than not I can’t get more than 40% of 2G reception! When I do have full 3G signal, being anywhere else, and do some speed tests, I’m lucky if I hit 1.5Mbit. And now, Telia is starting to test out their up and coming (if tests are successful) 100Mbit ADSL.

I have a 24Mbit internet connection to my house and I’m well below the maximum distance to the connection platform which delivers it, and yet, I can only get a maximum of 14-15Mbit download speed. I’m sticking to download speed in this article, although upload speed is lacking as much. My 14-15Mbit of download speed is commonly considered to be good and that I should be “thankful” for such a good connection, and yet I am paying for, as advertised, 24Mbit. Just like I am paying for the 7.2Mbit data plan on my cellphone.

I spoke with Telia today and the nice lady told me that they are preparing for the tests right now, and if they’re successful, they might start to roll out the upgrades early 2009. And here I am, with no 3G signal in my house. And paying full price for my 7.2Mbit data plan producing a weak 0.2Mbit at this particular moment (and any other giving moment in my house), a 24Mbit internet connection that gives me about 55% of what I’m paying 100% for… When will we stop accepting these outrageous facts? I fail to come up with any other product or service where one might accept a result of a bleak puny percentage of what you pay for and hope to get. Yes, you can always cancel within whatever number of days, but really… What options does it leave us with? Let’s just face it, being connected is becoming less and less a luxurious option in life and more a necessity. A fair comparison could be a phone line, any phone line, mobile or not. Would you pay 100% to get a line 10% of the times? I know so many people who’ve gotten replacement cellphones and discounts on their cellphone bills due to poor reception (that should not be, when comparisons have been made for the case).

A friend of mine had an 8Mbit internet connection producing a mear 3-4Mbit in his house, and after dawging Telia for 6 months he got 6+Mbit all of a sudden. So, shouldn’t we either pay for what we can get, or get what we pay for? Obviously, it can be done.

The nice Telia lady told me that for this 100Mbit upgrade to happen, they need to upgrade the connection platforms, which are located here and there all over our communities. Manual labor it is.

This takes me back a few years to when I called up Telia and asked for the opportunity to upgrade my connection upload speed, a request that was denied with the reason “it’s not possible, the hardware can not produce this”. And about a year or two later, with absolutely no hardware upgrades made anywhere, this was starting to roll out nationwide.

100Mbit ADSL… and not even good cellphone reception in my house… Oh, and I checked something else out. A house dead center in the city, was scheduled to get its connection platform upgraded to handle 24Mbit in late January 2009. It’s just funny I guess… 24Mbit been out for years. Oh, and did I mention the Swedish government used to own Telia?

Nu tar Universal steget och utmanar de illegala sajterna med gratis nedladdning på nätet. En första version av tjänsten lanseras i december.

Vivendi Universal, världens största musikkoncern, kommer via internetsajten Spiralfrog erbjuda gratis nedladdning av musikfiler på internet i Nordamerika. En så kallad betaversion av tjänsten lanseras i december. Universal Music Group (UMG), som ingår i Vivendi-koncernen, är ledande i branschen och hade i fjol en marknadsandel på 25,6 procent.

U2, Eminem och Elton John ingår
Bland bolagets artister finns världskändisar som U2, Eminem och Elton John. “Unga konsumenter kommer att få ett övertygande och lättanvänt alternativ till piratsajterna”, säger Spiralfrogs vd Robin Kent i ett pressmeddelande. Det var på tisdagen oklart om det även blir en europeisk version av tjänsten i framtiden enligt Amy Levin, taleskvinna för Spiralfrog. Enligt Kent kommer sajten att bli ekonomiskt hållbar om annonsörerna är relevanta för den unga publiken. Målgruppen för satsningen, musikkonsumenter mellan 13 och 34 år, beskrivs samtidigt som “en dröm för annonsörer” av vd:n.

Nedladdning växer kraftigt
Marknaden för nedladdning av musik på internet omsatte i fjol 1,1 miljarder dollar och växer kraftigt. Den domineras för närvarande av Apples Itunes, som säljer musikfiler för nio kronor styck på den svenska marknaden. Enligt tidningen Financial Times har Itunes omkring 80 procent av den legala marknaden för nedladdningar av musik från nätet. I fjol såldes 60 miljoner mp3-spelare, som används för att lyssna på de nedladdade filerna och antalet nedladdade musikfiler uppgick totalt till 420 miljoner, enligt branschorganet IFPI:s senaste rapport. Men musikindustrin brottas sedan länge med piratsajterna, som enligt IFPI står för 98 procent av nedladdningarna på nätet. Hur artisterna, vars alster kommer att finnas på Spiralfrog, ska få betalt är ännu oklart. Spiralfrog förhandlar samtidigt med andra musikkoncerner om samma typ av avtal som det som nu träffats med Vivendi Universal.

Source: expressen.se