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EE expands 4G roaming to 14 more countries, but the USA's still MIA
EE has today announced a fresh batch of countries its customers can take advantage of 4G roaming in, after starting out in France and Spain earlier this year. It's a diverse list, with 4G now available in several other European destinations (Germany, Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Moldova, Russia), as well as Canada, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and from tomorrow, South Korea. The USA is the only country absent from the list that EE said would be added by summer, but the network is promising to reach "all major travel destinations" by year's end. While the carrier might be making progress towards this goal, it's still using the tiresome model of selling capped data bundles to travellers. O2 and Vodafone, on the other hand, let you take your normal allowances abroad for a small fee, and Three being Three, provides the same service for free.
Qualcomm building babel-fish chip to support multiple LTE bands
Qualcomm has revealed that it's developing a new mobile radio that'll operate across multiple LTE bands. While dreams of a cross-network standard were burned to the ground last July, the chip company revealed that the MSM-8960 will connect to three frequencies below 1GHz and four above. Qualcomm has said that the hardware will make its way into handsets by the end of the year at the same time it voiced opposition to the FCC's plan to standardize the lower 700MHz band -- something the smaller networks feel is necessary to prevent them being squeezed out by the big three.
Cellular South inks deal with LightSquared, gets LTE with stroke of a pen
Cellular South just dropped a nugget, announcing it's hopped aboard with LightSquared to provide nationwide LTE service to its 900,000 subscribers. In turn, the 4G wholesaler promised to bring coverage to rural communities (and offer satellite service for those in really distant locales). Cellular South joins Cricket, Best Buy Connect and SI Wireless as the latest to add LTE coverage the easy way, though they're left waiting for the network to come online sometime in 2012. Meanwhile, LightSquared continues working to resolve those pesky GPS concerns, with a final report due to the FCC on June 15th. PR after the break. [Image courtesy Flickr]
