Telecom’s announcement today that it will conduct live customer trials of Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile technology later this year, as it prepares to evolve its XT network to 4G, is exciting news for anyone wanting to make the most of the latest smartphones and tablets.

Of course what many businesses will ask is what they can do with the even faster mobile data speeds that this new technology enables.

In October last year, we ran an LTE showcase with Alcatel Lucent to demonstrate just that.

One of the most interesting demonstrations was of the MyReplay application, developed here in New Zealand by Solta Labs. The app turns your smartphone or tablet into a portable personal video recorder that lets you catch up on key moments of a live game – directly from your seat in the stadium. Check out the video of the demo below, which also includes Alcatel Lucent explaining its “Virtual Venue” concept:

We managed to get close to 100mb/s downloads over our mobile devices at the live showcase, and Alcatel Lucent demonstrated how this speed can be applied in a wide range of applications and technologies that need fast mobile data access.

This included real-time digital signage, a virtual concierge service, augmented reality applications and even an LTE connected video camera that could stream HD video directly to the internet. What the demo on the video below:

You can watch videos of all the LTE Showcase demonstrations on this playlist on our YouTube channel: