A consortium of networking companies is on the hunt for a rural location to trial Long Term Evolution (LTE).
Cambridge Wireless will team up with Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) to provide the infrastructure and test whether LTE on the 800MHz band would be an economically viable solution for providing connectivity to remote areas.
The trial is set to last for six months but the companies are yet to decide which lucky location will be used to experiment with the technology.
"We are looking for a suitable trial location [and] ideally this [will be] a community that is currently poorly served by broadband and ideally also with limited, or no 3G coverage," revealed Cambridge Wireless in an email sent to IT PRO.
The company is also looking for people keen to get involved in the trial and "perhaps coordinate some aspects on behalf of their community."
Although LTE has taken off in many other countries, the UK has lagged behind in even piloting the networks with a few notable exceptions.
Both O2 and Motorola have carried out small scale trials and Arqiva and Alcatel-Lucent are attempting a similar test to Cambridge Wireless and NSN, seeing if LTE can solve the rural connectivity issue in West Wales.
Public sector plays its part
Rural areas of the UK suffer greatly from poor connectivity and numerous industry commentators have claimed only a joint effort by the private and public sector will fix the internet woes.
The culture secretary Jeremy Hunt admitted remote locations were "currently missing out," adding: "The whole of the UK should be able to share in the benefits of broadband and we are determined to make this happen by the end of the Parliament."
To this end, the Government yesterday pledged a further 20 million specifically for rural broadband and to help towards Hunt's goal of making Britain's broadband network the best in Europe by 2015.
