British smartphone consumers have always lived in the shadow of their American counterparts, but why? One reason for this is that American mobile providers, like AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint, have all had “4G” technology since the year 2009. There is no defined answer that makes or does not make a 4th Generation data network. Therefore, the most commonly monikered “4G” services in the United States are: WiMax (Sprint), HSPA+ (AT&T, T-Mobile) and finally LTE (adopted first by Verizon, now other networks have begun rolling it out; like AT&T).

LTE, Long Term Evolution, is the fastest of the 4G technologies. Thats why Everything Everywhere, the company that owns and operates both Orange and T-Mobile in the UK, began trials of the new technology last year to test the reliability and speeds of the infrastructure. With the results data collected from the trial, Everything Everywhere concluded that they were going to pursue a roll out of LTE here in the UK.

To the present day. An original decision date had been set between the company and the regulator, Ofcom, for April 17th. Ofcom have officially confirmed that the decision has been pushed back and will now take place on May 8th. The reason behind this: to give stakeholders more time to respond. This delay could also make or break the proposal.

During the extra weeks prior to the hearing, other mobile networks, such as O2 and Vodafone, will have their oportunities to voice their thoughts (read: objections) on the case, quite possibly pointing out that the proposed plan would give Everything Everywhere the majority share of the spectrum in the 1,800MHz range. Until May 8th, the new hearing date, the decision still hangs in the balance.