The European Union, like the United States, is taking spectrum that was once allocated for television broadcasts and letting operators use it to deploy advanced wireless networks. The US already had their 700 MHz auction almost 2.5 years ago, with Verizon declared the victor, but the EU is a bit more complicated with each nation having their respective auction whenever they feel like it. The goal however is to have each and every EU country free up the “digital dividend” (read: 800 MHz band) spectrum by January 1, 2013; that’s a little over 2 years from now. Germany is looking to get a head start.
Deutsche Telekom, using infrastructure equipment from Nokia Siemens Networks, is bringing LTE to the land of lederhosen by the end of this year. Rural areas, parts of the country that don’t even have broadband, are set to get the new wireless technology first, with cities coming later. This makes sense since initial rollouts will probably be buggy and any lessons learned in the country side will prove useful later on when places such as Berlin and Hamburg start getting access.
With Verizon set to launch their LTE network as early as next month, and now Deutsche Telekom saying Germany will get LTE by the end of the year, the dream of high speed low latency mobile broadband is no longer just a fantasy, but becoming a reality for more and more people. Sweden and Norway were the first places in the world to get LTE, way back in December 2009, and TeliaSonera has already updated their network to hit 90 Mbps, so soon we’ll see other larger nations catch up to that gold standard. I’m actually kind of surprised, and a bit jealous, that my colleagues on the other side of the pond will get access to LTE before I do here in Finland, where mobile networks were practically invented.
[Via: Mobile Business Briefing]