RIM touts importance of 4G to BlackBerry 10 success

Research in Motion (RIM) has said the uptake of 4G will be vital to the success of its future BlackBerry 10 operating system and new devices, as the requirements from enterprises to do more on the go increases.

Speaking at the Westminster eForum event on Friday, the firm's senior vice president of sales, Bob El-Hawary, said that businesses now expect to be able to do things on their phone as they can on a computer and 4G will be central to this.

"4G helps us keep up with the standard people are expecting. We believe it will help us embark on a new era of mobile computing. It's not just about voice now but apps; it really is mobile computing," he said.

"The speeds we are talking about are very important compared to what we had in the past."

While stopping short of confirming RIM would therefore be making all of its future devices 4G-enabled the statements strongly suggest this.

"With BlackBerry 10 we want to ensure all products - tablet and smartphone - are good enough to support any app or service people want."

BlackBerry 10 is set to be launched on 30 January next year and represents the firm's final shot at recapturing its former glory in the mobile market as it's seen its former dominance eroded by Apple.

Earlier at the same event EE had touted that some customers are seeing 4G speeds as high as 30Mbit/s on its network, although said most are averaging around 6-8Mbit/s.