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By
Tim Young
As 2011 continues to pick up speed, it looks more and more like this generation
is “the next generation”, at least in the wireless realm. Of course, that’s sort
of a nonsensical cliché, like saying “the future is now” or “today is tomorrow,”
but if we look at everything that next gen networks promised a few short years
ago, and how much of that is being delivered today, particularly to mobile
customers, the rapidity of growth has been impressive.
Take LTE. I spoke to more than a few vendors and service providers in, say, 2007
or 2008 who predicted that LTE would slide into obscurity like many a predicted
game-changer before it. However, it’s clear that this tech isn’t going away.
TeliaSonera famously cracked open the LTE can-of-worms in Stockholm and Oslo
(simultaneously) before 2009 was out, and NTT DoCoMo followed on before the end
of 2010, as did Verizon Wireless in the US. The latter offers speeds of some
5-12 Mbps, though MSNBC.com clocked speeds of over
30 Mbps, down (according to Gizmodo, anyway).
However, DoCoMo promises, and generally delivers, speeds that exceed those, and
may move into the ‘Holy Crap!’ arena before long. One Computerworld writer was disappointed with speeds in the 5-7 Mbps range,
while other reports had the DoCoMo network approaching its announced speeds in
the high 30s. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
DoCoMo LTE-Advanced tests
have hit 1 Gbps in the lab, and is due to begin field experiments on the
technology as soon as possible.
The Players
And there are many more carriers out there pushing the LTE envelope. China
Mobile’s pending 2011 launch is of particular note. In fact, ABI Research
estimates that wireless operators could spend billions in the next few |
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"ABI predicts LTE infrastructure spend will reach almost $1billion in 2011." |
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years as
they thunder towards the future of LTE. The research firm predicts that
spend on LTE infrastructure will spike 120% in 2011 to reach almost $1 billion,
a finding supported by some 185 deployments and trials underway, worldwide.
ABI specifically points to some of the deployments I’ve already mentioned, but
also draws attention to MetroPCS’s plan to launch half a dozen LTE smartphones
in 2011, and mentions AT&T’s plans for LTE, as well as T-Mobile’s. Granted,
these carriers seem to still have a good deal of work ahead of them if they are
to continue to propel towards the next generations of wireless.
AT&T, for example, announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January that it
was planning to have its LTE plans “largely complete” by 2013. Meanwhile, both
AT&T and T-Mobile run campaigns freely using the term “4G”, but that’s a
marketing topic, and something covered elsewhere this month, so I won’t belabor
the point. However, the idea of having an LTE network that won’t be ready for
primetime for several years runs counter to some of the extreme optimism we’ve
been hearing from other providers. It’s an arms race out there.
FOUR!
And how big are the numbers we’re talking about? Well, Wireless Intelligence
estimates that by 2015, LTE will account for some 4% of the world’s mobile
connections.
Wait. Did I type that correctly? 4%? As in four? The small number between the
smaller “3” and the slightly larger “5”? Yes. But with the speeds that LTE
networks could prove capable of
providing, that 4% could prove
staggering in terms of revenue and
network demand to the providers on
whom they depend. According to
Finnish analysis firm asymco, iPhones
account for roughly 4.2% of handsets,
worldwide. And yet, how fully has that
little handset dominated the way that
consumers think about handset use,
providers think about network planning, and developers think about
software? 4% can be a very big
number.
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