Bite empowers Latvia to be among top 5 European countries with fastest mobile internet

Wanted to include here our press release launched today on the recently launched upgrade on our mobile internet service, reaching speeds and quality not see in Latvia until now. In the coming days I will be publishing a white paper on this topic, covering both the mobile internet development both in Latvia and Lithuania




Also please find some links to some of the media coverage (in Latvian & Russian)
Link to article on pozitivaszinas.lv (Latvian)
Link to article on russina business daily
Link to article on Delfi.LV (Latvian)

Well done Bite!!!!

Press Release 

After modernization of all 3G base stations in Latvia, Bite is launching the fastest mobile internet speed in the country, ranking Latvia among top 5 fastest in the whole Europe. Bite mobile internet speed in urban areas is on average 6 Mbps (download) – doubling the existing available speeds on the market in Latvia and reaching same level of the Mobile Broadband leaders in Europe. Tests carried out for two weeks by a group of active internet users prove that download speeds overreaching even 11 Mbps are available in Riga.

“We are proud to see that our network modernization puts Latvia on the map of fastest mobile internet speeds in Europe. And even more – we hope that our clients will enjoy the ability to download a song just in 1 second or watch a Youtube video with no interruptions on their phones or using mobile internet modems for laptops,” comments Fred Hrenchuk, CEO of Bite Latvia.

 

According to Akamai, the state of the internet report Q1 2010 out of 109 mobile providers operating in Europe, only 4 operators (in UK, Slovakia, Poland and Russia) have average speeds above 3 Mbps. With the mobile network upgrade, Bite is joining the group with average download speed of 6 Mbps. Which means that for example a song in mp3 file format can be downloaded in 1 second, whereas streaming of Youtube video would be without any interruptions.

14 European mobile operators have average connection speeds in the 2 Mbps or above range, while 35 have average measured connection speeds of 1 Mbps or more. Average download speed of mobile internet on Latvian market so far has been ranging from 1 to 3 Mbps.

Latvia is ranking also among the first European countries to have the new generation mobile internet modem on the market. This modem has theoretical capacity of processing 21 Mbps download and 5.8 Mbps upload speed. Whereas previous models available in Latvia and Europe have had capacity till 7.2 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload speed in ideal conditions.

As we’ve already announced, Bite has started most advanced network modernization project in the Baltics. The project is still in process, but all 3G base stations have been already modernized providing the first tangible benefit for Bite customers – higher mobile internet speed. The network modernization investment is using the latest technologies and solutions that will provide Bite customers with wider network coverage, faster data transmission speeds, and a higher signal and voice quality. All new equipment by Huawei is ready for future upgrades to 4G and LTE, if there is customer demand and as soon as it is allowed by the license conditions. New technologies are very environment friendly and will help Bite to reduce its energy consumption (and therefore CO2 emissions).