Rural homes and offices in part of Cumbria will be able to use EE’s 4G mobile network as an alternative to fixed-line broadband from next month.

EE is expanding its rural broadband trial in the northern part of the Lake District to cover more than 100 square miles, where it’ll offer ‘superfast’ broadband speeds to over 2,000 residents and businesses for the first time.

Ofcom’s annual Infrastructure Report update shows UK WiFi hotspot usage growing at a faster rate than mobile data.

It says the number of public WiFi hotspots across the UK has more than doubled in the past 12 months from 16,000 to 34,000. At the same time, the amount of data being sent or received by consumers using these hotspots has almost trebled.

Communications infrastructure business Alcatel-Lucent has revealed plans to cut around 10,000 jobs by the end of 2015. It’s part of a company-wide commitment to save €1 billion in the same period.

These actions, which form part of ‘The Shift Plan’ announced in June by new CEO Michel Combes, are designed to reposition Alcatel-Lucent as a ‘next generation’ technology specialist and return it to profit.

Mark Bridge writes:

Talk about a difference. In preliminary results last week, HTC announced its first-ever quarterly loss while Samsung revealed record quarterly profits.

Curiously, many of the week’s other news stories also had a companion headline to provide a contrast.

The UK government has announced plans for faster and better mobile broadband connections on railway journeys.

Mobile signal on the busiest parts of the rail network will be improved by upgrading Network Rail’s existing infrastructure and installing new ‘Mobile Communications Gateway’ equipment on trains.