In December last year two wireless mobile networks, compliant with the LTE next generation mobile network standard (see the previous blog post here), were rolled out in the Scandinavian capitals Stockholm and Oslo by network provider TeliaSonera. While the LTE standard, which offers considerably faster connection speeds relative to the current 3G technologies, is widely backed by Governments and Network Providers, the TeliaSonera networks were the world’s first publically available networks utilizing the new technology and market a significant mile stone for the new technology.
This is an incredibly exciting development as LTE offers blazingly fast speeds around 100Mbps based on the range of the radio spectrum utilised (for a non technical discussion about the LTE technology see here).
While the TeliaSonera networks were the first to launch, there are a number of other networks expected to launch very soon. For instance Verizon (#2 in the US) are expected to launch their 4G LTE network by the end of the year in approximately 30 markets. Interestingly, Verizon were one of the main proponents of the CDMA2000 standard over the WCDMA standard from which the LTE has evolved from, primarily due to its connection with the 3GPP (see previous blog post here). Similarly, both AT&T (#1 in the US) and NTT DoCoMo (#1 in Japan) are expected to launch by the end of 2011, and the Swedish network providers Tele2 and Telenor (#2 and #3 in Sweden respectively) have announced a joint partnership which will see an LTE network proving coverage to 99% of the Swedish population by 2013.
Furthermore, spectrum auctions related to LTE have been run in Denmark and the Netherlands and are expected to be run soon in a number of countries such as Belgium this year (in conjunction with the sale of a 4th 3G licence) as well as Malaysia, India and the UK in 2011. In addition to the support of LTE technology that has been publically announced by numerous Network providers – T-Mobile, Vodafone, France Telecom, Telecom Italia, China Telecom, MetroPCS, KTP (Dutch), AlMadar Aljadeed (Libya), Telenet (Belgium), Telstra (Australia), etc. – we could potentially see a great many next generation networks rolled out within a few years.
So while the WiMAX standard, LTE’s main competitor for 4G market acceptance, has already seen some deployment (see here for an interactive map of WiMAX networks), the lead they currently enjoy could quickly be eroded should the LTE movement, which offers considerably faster speeds in theory, not stumble. However interestingly, the difference between the standards is predominately software as opposed to hardware. The CEO of Clearwater, who in partnership with US network provider Sprint has backed the WiMAX technology, reports that “Wimax and LTE have 80 percent overlap in terms of technology when you consider modulation schemes etc.”
Converse to this however, is that we are still a while away from being able to fully experience the LTE networks as compliant handsets are not expected to be widely available until the end of next year. Currently, the Scandinavian networks are only accessible through wireless USB modems by sumsung.
While both Samsung and HTC have announced the launch of 4G compliant handsets sometime this year, these will be significantly limited to use with specific networks. For instance, the Samsung SCH-r900 will be compatible with both LTE and CDMA and operate on MetroPCS network within the Las Vegas Metropolitan Area. Similarly, HTC has two 4G compliant handsets expected to surface this year, one compatible with the Chinese proprietary TD-LTE standard and another with the WiMAX standard via the Sprint network in the US.
The difficultly in the widespread release of compatible handsets arises due to how the frequencies being used for LTE vary across markets. For instance, an LTE device capable of unrestricted global roaming will be required to support 13 to 15 individual frequency bands, even the first three LTE networks to be deployed will all operate on different frequency bands. NTT DoCoMo use the 2.1GHz band, TeliaSonera uses 2.6GHz, while Verizon will use the 700MHz band (See here).
Handsets will either need to be region specific or compatible with multiple versions of the standard. Which is interesting in that the divide between LTE and WiMAX is perhaps no bigger than the divide within LTE itself. As such, consumers will continued to face the international fragmentation of mobile networks as global harmonisation does not seem a realistic option in the short term.
So while great progress is being made with regard to the deployment of LTE networks, there is still much work for the standard to accomplish before we can all enjoy streaming HD content wirelessly to our devices as the LTE proponents promise.
