By
Tim Young
LTE: Long Term Evolution. The name, itself, is evocative of a movement within the industry that is faraway, and perhaps a bit nebulous. It seems, at first glance, to be yet another buzzword indicating a quixotic goal for an industry that cannot keep up with its own marketing campaigns.
That perception, however, is a false one. LTE is not a pie-in-the-sky formula for tomorrow’s mobile services. It’s a tangible goal for tomorrow that, in some areas, is here today.
And why not? LTE offers myriad benefits for operators. It promises more efficient use of bandwidth, which is welcome news for heavily taxed networks, carrying far more data than ever before. It offers greater flexibility, which can help improve time-to-market for new services. It offers an opportunity for operators to meet the needs and wants of their consumers, who roundly demand more services with greater speed and reliability than ever before.
That’s no small order, but it’s one that LTE is capable of delivering on in a way that previous mobile technologies have been largely unable to.
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LTE is not a pie-in-the-sky formula for tomorrow’s mobile services. |
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Meanwhile, DoCoMo competitor Softbank announced that it will lean on WiFi as a complement to LTE as it turns to every outlet available to satisfy user demand for data.
In North America, AT&T announced that it, like DoCoMo, would skip over HSPA+ and plunge headlong towards LTE, hoping to have LTE in place in a meaningful way by 2011. Verizon aims to have LTE offerings in place somewhat sooner, hoping to make it commercially available next year.
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And how far off is this technology?
With announcements late last month that TeliaSonera has unveiled the first active 4G LTE network (in Scandinavia), LTE became very much a technology for today, as well as for tomorrow.
For those carriers who have not begun live LTE deployments, the technology is still just around the corner. However, they’re working at breakneck speed to be the next past the post with a live LTE deployment.
NTT DoCoMo has begun work on its LTE infrastructure, and hopes to offer data services across it by the end of 2010. The Japanese giant skipped over HSPA+ as an interim measure, forging ahead towards LTE.
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T-Mobile, meanwhile, is still working on its HSPA+ offerings, but, as it was one of the very first providers to demonstrate LTE well over a year ago, is still very much committed to the technology as its choice for 4G offerings.
Many other providers (Telus, KDDI, Vodafone, Orange, etc) have spoken out about their commitment to the technology, as well.
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