I had a meeting yesterday morning with Everything Everywhere, the owners of T-Mobile and Orange in the UK. I wasn't initially going to post the details here on CrackBerry, but the more I think about it, the more the discussions I had may well be to RIM's advantage.
The meeting was about Everything Everywhere's plan to hopefully roll out 4G finally in Great Britain. (We are lagging way behind our American friends over the pond). I say hopefully as they are still waiting for the go-ahead from Ofcom and without the clearance we will stay on 3G. However, Everything Everywhere are confident that things will move positively and in the meantime they are preparing their current cell sites for 4G so a switch to the new technology will be swift once the green light is given.
So where does RIM come in you may ask? Well, we know that the first BlackBerry 10 device is scheduled for release in Q4 this year and of course for the U.S. market it will support LTE. Everything Everywhere have stated today that they 'hope' to have the HSPA+42 network in place late this year "subject to Ofcom spectrum liberalisation", so I presume the UK variants of the BB10 handsets will also have the same LTE capabilities. To cut a long story short, if Everything Everywhere are to support BlackBerry 10 devices from the offset they potentially could be some of the first 4G smartphones to launch in the UK giving RIM UK an extra selling tool.
With Everything Everywhere being the UK's biggest network, it maybe time for them to grow even more as they are the only carrier that are working towards rolling out 4G ASAP.
May be great timing for RIM? Or fate. Or their destiny!
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