The latest news covering 4G LTE mobile network in UK has just come to light, it looks like Swindon will be the first in the UK to receive this service in 2012.

The new LTE network will kick off in 2012 with Swindon council being the first to test the waters so to speak, in recent reports it was said that residents would lose free Wi-Fi access to the last of the council’s last networking project they provided.

Swindon council offices will be getting LTE connections to its Broadband in 2012, LTE will not be added to mobile phone networks for a while in the UK but at least broadband is a start. It will use the 3.4GHz broadband spectrum that started over 10-years ago. The LTE-network may be given to the public soon but the council is the first step in the right direction.

Broadband UK has a licence to push out 3.4GHz of mobile telephony, which was acquired in 2007, but this is not the case for mobile phones. The company owns 40MHz of spectrum split into two equal chunks, for up and down links starting at 3480MHz and 3580MHz respectively, this means that there will be a reasonable LTE service and tablets or LTE handsets that will operate in that band aren’t even on manufacturers’ road maps yet.

Around 42 bands have been approved for LTE around the world, but to support all of these will take some time. The Register reports “But that’s not a problem for fixed wireless access, where receiving equipment can be tuned to the network. 3.4GHz won’t penetrate walls, or anything else, and so is well suited for line-of-site distribution to fixed locations (as UK Broadband will be providing to Swindon).

If Swindon does get LTE it will only be a few that will have access to it, we will bring you more news on this as it happens.