LTE is generating excitement in the world of consumer electronics and ever-faster online video viewing, but the 4G (fourth-generation) mobile network technology may have even greater implications for specific industries that lack a good means of connectivity.

Texas Energy Network, a startup in Houston, will focus on the oil and gas industry in an LTE (Long-Term Evolution) test next week. Using equipment from Alcatel-Lucent, TEN hopes to demonstrate that LTE can bring more economical Internet access to drilling and exploration sites in the vast oil fields of the Permian Basin, which spans western Texas and southeastern New Mexico.

Most of the oil drilling in this region of about 25 counties takes place far from the populated areas where most cellular networks are concentrated, said TEN Chief Technology Officer Stan Hughey. As a result, oil and gas companies often are on their own when it comes to sending critical real-time data such as flow, pressure and volume from equipment in the field, he said. When mobile exploration teams are out looking for new fields, they need to make audio and video calls and generate large amounts of geological data that needs to be sent back to headquarters.

TEN, led by former Qwest Communications International (Q) executive Gregory Casey, wants to be an independent service provider for these companies, setting up and managing its own network. So far, the company is only looking at LTE.

“It appears to us it’s becoming a de facto standard,” Hughey said. Most mobile operators around the world that plan to deploy 4G networks have chosen LTE, a trend that bodes well for relatively high-volume, low-cost client devices once networks go live. Having a wide selection of clients was an important factor for TEN, Hughey said.

Today, most oil and gas companies rely on narrowband point-to-point wireless links (comparable to dial-up) using unlicensed radio spectrum, according to Hughey. Some lay fiber across their oil fields. For exploration, which requires high bandwidth and mobility, they often use satellite VSATs (very small aperture terminals). These can offer more than 1M bps (bit per second) but at a higher cost and with more delay than LTE, he said. It’s also likely that LTE client equipment will be much less expensive than VSATs, Hughey said.

The test will use one base station and last about a week, according to Alcatel-Lucent. The oil industry presents different challenges from consumer mobile data networks, said Mark Madden, Alcatel’s regional vice president of energy markets in the Americas. As with utilities setting up smart grids, the main purpose of the network is to send many small streams of data in from the field, he said. “The needs of the entire energy sector are uplink-focused,” Madden said.

The other difference is that the geographic reach of a base station is more important than densely packing base stations into an area to cover many simultaneous users. Alcatel is hoping to demonstrate its LTE base station working over a range of 20 miles, Madden said.

Alcatel said players in a number of vertical industries including health care, transportation and public safety have expressed interest in LTE. But this will be the first time Alcatel actually demonstrates LTE for an energy-sector application, Madden said.

Before it can move from tests to deployment, TEN will need radio spectrum licenses across the region. The company is now talking with several spectrum holders, Hughey said. The company plans to use paired spectrum, with one band for upstream and one for downstream traffic. It’s not clear yet what spectrum TEN will be able to use, but the company would like to tap into the 700MHz band, the same range that Verizon Wireless plans to use for its LTE network, coming later this year. In general, the 700MHz band offers greater reach per cell site than higher bands.

Alcatel said it could adapt to different bands depending on where TEN gets its licenses. Alcatel wouldn’t comment on how much bandwidth its equipment could deliver, saying that depends on how much spectrum TEN has.

If LTE works as expected and the frequencies are available, it will probably take between 12 and 18 months to roll out the network, TEN’s Hughey estimated. The service provider hopes later to expand to other parts of the U.S. and potentially other countries.

However, the company remains focused on the oil and gas industries. If it does allow private residents of the Permian Basin to hop on to the LTE network, its service-level agreements with oil companies will have to come first, Hughey said.

“You wouldn’t want somebody throwing a slingbox on there and taking bandwidth off the network,” Hughey said.

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Well, now there’s a crowdsourced, Consumer Reports–like way to find out, thanks to the folks who run the online speed testing service Speedtest.net.

The company, which runs more than a million tests a day on its main testing page, updated its broadband statistics site NetIndex.com on Tuesday to let users see comparative results sorted by city. For instance, Los Angeles sees an average speed of 7.2 Mbps, with the Road Runner service slightly edging Charter Communications for the top speed — 16.97 Mbps compared to Charter’s 16.4 Mbps.

Moreover, since Speedtest.net asks users to rate their satisfaction with their ISP, you can see user rankings as well, with Road Runner clocking a 3.2 out of 5 stars, compared to 2.9 for Charter and 2.5 for third-place AT&T Worldnet.

The point, according to Speedtest.net co-founder Doug Suttles, is to make it easier for people to find a new ISP when moving to town, or when they want to find a better provider.

The speed data is compiled from the previous 30 days worth of data, and is updated daily, while the satisfaction ratings reflect votes placed over years. The rankings aren’t particularly easy to find. The best way is to start on the Net Index homepage, scroll down to the state map and click on your state. Then under Cities, click on the tab to change the listing to “By IP Address” to find your city. The city-by-city data currently focuses on the United States, but will be expanding and there’s plenty of international data already.

New York City beats Los Angeles on average speed, with an average of 11 Mbps, raised in no small part because AT&T’s Worldnet service in the Big Apple registers an average 21.32 Mbp average, with Road Runner landing just behind at 17.29.

The data, Suttles argues, shows that broadband in the United States is better than many say think.

“For the most part our feeling is the ISPs get a bad rap,” Suttles said. “The government wants people to be convinced that broadband is terrible but we are a pretty sprawled-out country. We are hoping politicians look at this and realize it is not so bad in some places.”

Ookla, the parent company for Speedtest.net, is no newcomer to the world of broadband. It was founded four years ago as a spinoff from the ISP Speakeasy and sells versions of Speedtest.net’s testing service to nearly all the net’s top ISPs.

Speedtest.net was started largely as a tech demonstration, according to Suttles, but has since grown to be the place people turn to when they want to test their connections. And now, the site provides more than half the company’s revenue, thanks to lucrative ads like those for Google’s Chrome browser.

Now the company is asking testers to tell the company what speeds they were promised and how much they are paying, in order to come up with a ranking of ISPs by value and by which ones deliver the speeds they promise.

The company’s preliminary data-crunching results may come as a surprise to some.

“Nationally, 93 percent of people are getting the speed they signed up for,” Suttles said. “That’s definitively a different story than anyone else is telling.”

The company also has free mobile apps for Android and the iPhone as well, but data from those tests is not reflected in these results. Also not included is data from the testing suites the company provides directly to ISPs.

Some have questioned the methodology of the Speedtest.net tests and whether its tests are representative of the nation as a whole. In its defense, the company points to a recent MIT evaluation of different methodologies that found Speedtest.net was the best of the currently available data sources .

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The Obama administration announced on Monday, “We are now beginning the next transformation in information technology: the wireless broadband revolution.”

The announcement aims to launch U.S. business into the online world, and was outlined in a presidential memorandum to the heads of executive departments and agencies.

It encourages both federal and private agencies to take a few steps, including a call from the federal government to free up 500 megahertz of wireless communication spectrum, which would nearly double what is currently available.

The freed up spectrum would then be auctioned off, with the majority going toward mobile broadband and other uses. It can then be shared between the private and government sector, including small businesses and individual users.

“This new era in global technology leadership will only happen if there is adequate spectrum available to support the forthcoming myriad of wireless devices, networks, and applications that can drive the new economy,” says the memorandum.

The document describes it as a move to expand wireless broadband in the United States, with a belief it “will trigger the creation of innovative new businesses, provide cost-effective connections in rural areas, increase productivity, improve public safety, and allow for the development of mobile telemedicine, telework, distance learning, and other new applications that will transform Americans’ lives.”

It states “The world is going wireless, and we must not fall behind,” adding that there are few developments in technology, which have as much “potential to enhance America’s economic competitiveness, create jobs, and improve the quality of our lives as wireless high-speed access to the Internet.”

Virgin Media is all set to release a revolutionary new modem and router with the ability to handle speeds of up to 400Mbps.

The network upgrades will be officially launched by the end of this year.

Virgin Media has around 70,000 subscribers for its current network, providing speeds of up to 50Mbps.

Along with the superior speed router, Virgin Will also provide its costumers with new services including consumer telepresence, cloud computing and home working.

Jon James, Virgin Media’s director of broadband stated: “We want to be ready for the evolution of network speeds in the coming years as we roll out ever-improving services, including our 100Mps service due at the end of the year and trials of 200Mbps ongoing,”

Virgin Media will also try and work out a deal with utility companies to use telegraph poles, allowing them to offer broadband connections to homes in located in rural areas.

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