VoIP in rural Britain getting closer?

Engineers are trialling new technology in rural Wales that could help provide high-speed broadband and VoIP services to the UK's worst internet connectivity blackspots.

Communications company Arqiva and telecoms firm Alcatel-Lucent are to test Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology to provide wireless access in the Preseli Mountains for a three-month period.

The companies hope they will be able to deliver speeds of up to 50 Mb per second using the infrastructure, which will use the 800 MHz frequency recently made available by the switchover to digital TV.

Alcatel-Lucent's north Europe president Lakh Jemmett explained the trial could open up the web to homes in hard-to-reach areas with the possibility of many more applications in the future.

Steve Holebrook, managing director of Arqiva's Government, Mobile & Enterprise business said: "We firmly believe that the combination of LTE technology, the 800 MHz spectrum and a neutral-host commercial model is the best way of providing rural communities with broadband quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively."

BT recently announced plans to roll out super-fast broadband in Suffolk through 100 gigabit fibre-optic cables.