Hasta La Gadget!

After a series of rumors about the HTC First not selling too well in the States, we’ve now heard that the customized Facebook / Android handset won’t be coming to the UK. Mobile News initially reported that UK pre-orders will be cancelled and we’ve just confirmed this with our own sources, who said that it was Facebook itself who made the decision, rather than HTC or either of the European carrier partners (EE and Orange). We’ve reached out to HTC and EE for confirmation and will update if we get a response.

Update: We’ve just heard back from EE, who confirmed the rumor and attributed Facebook’s decision to “customer feedback” that resulted in a need to improve the Facebook Home interface before spreading it to further markets:

“Following customer feedback, Facebook has decided to focus on adding new customization features to Facebook Home over the coming months. While they are working to make a better Facebook Home experience, they have recommended holding off launching the HTC First in the UK, and so we will shortly be contacting those who registered their interest with us to let them know of this decision. Rest assured, we remain committed to bringing our customers the latest mobile experiences, and we will continue to build on our strong relationship with Facebook so as to offer customers new opportunities in the future.”

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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4G carrier EE has announced plans to double the speed of its UK LTE network, taking peak downloads to as much as 80Mbps+ in ten locations by summer 2013. The “turbocharged 4G” trial – which, if successful, will see the network boost rolled out to all across EE’s service – should see an average download rate per user of 20Mbps, the carrier says, and is part of a number of enhancements EE plans for its service in the near future.

The first ten cities to get the double-speed LTE are Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, and Sheffield. Trials in Cardiff have already been underway, with EE seeing higher than 80Mbps rates in its own testing; in a perfect, lab setting, the system could go as high as 130Mbps, though that would never be achieved in the wild.

To achieve all that, EE is doubling the 1800MHz spectrum its 4G service can use, up to 20Mhz. That means not only higher speeds but more capacity, something the carrier says will be vitally important as 4G adoption increases: its research suggests data traffic over the next three years will jump by up to 750-percent.

In response to the expected climb in demand, EE will also be trialling carrier aggregation before the end of the year, part of the LTE-Advanced feature set, which joins together spectrum in different bands for more performance. That will see the carrier make use of its newly-acquired spectrum holdings, bought in the recent UK 4G auction, in the 800MHz and 2.6GHz frequencies.

Meanwhile, there are also plans for voice over Wi-Fi (VoWi-Fi) along with video and voice calls over 4G/LTE (VoLTE), though there’s no timeline for their launch. The speed improvements will come at no extra cost to subscribers, as EE prepares itself for rival UK networks launching their own 4G service, something expected to happen within a matter of months.

EE doubling UK 4G speed: 80Mbps peak in ten city summer trial is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The HTC First might be launching on AT&T, but that doesn’t mean this built-for-Facebook device is going to be limited to the US: we just learned it will eventually arrive in Europe too, on Orange and the UK’s EE network. Unfortunately, whereas AT&T came armed with pricing and availability details ($100 on April 12th), we still have no idea when, exactly, the phone will hit these other carriers. If you want to try before you buy, of course, you should be able to download the Facebook Home skin through Google Play pretty soon.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, HTC, Facebook

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We’re not surprised to learn that Cumbria is a hotbed of people working from home, as we’d do the same if we had the Lake District to wander around during our lunch hour. The downside of living in an area of outstanding natural beauty, of course, is that there isn’t even any landline broadband to use — but EE has despatched Kevin Bacon to remedy that with some 4G infrastructure. Residents of the Northern Fells will get mobile broadband offerings from £15.99 a month, and the company will use it as a gauge to see if it should provide services for other underserved rural communities. It seems that EE’s now the network for hill walkers as well as technofreaks.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Was that late April launch date for the Galaxy S 4 a little too vague for you? Well, fortunate British readers, you get something a little more specific. The UK’s only LTE network, EE has stated that it will start selling Samsung’s new Galaxy, both online and in its bricks and mortar establishments, starting April 26th. It’s keeping quiet on the prices, matching those other UK carriers for the time being, but we’re sure prices will appear ahead of any preorder page — that’s set to go live on March 28th.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung

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