By piecing together multiple signals the technology can achieve as much as 326 megabits per second in downloads on a 20MHz slice of the wireless spectrum; uploads peak at 86MHz, says the standards body. The finished version of LTE also cuts latency down to 10 milliseconds between the tower and the user, allowing relatively time-sensitive activities such as video calls or games.

News of the approval comes after Nokia has already demonstrated the 4G cell service in action, reaching 173Mbps in real-world tests that involved an interference-prone downtown environment and several users connected to a station at once. Practical use may see a further drop once service is commercially available and more users are present on a single network.