3G.co.uk is reporting that Ericsson and TeliaSonera have announced an apparent world first of a commercial LTE deployment, in Stockholm, Sweden. As you probably know, LTE is being touted as THE 4G wireless tech, allowing such kerrazy things as TV and video consumption on the move! The go-live should be in 2010, and bring on data rates which knock HSPA in to a cocked hat – we are talking data rates of well over 100Mbps – and Ericsson has shown off peak rates of 160Mbps already!
Now, LTE hasn’t got it all its own way – there’s another contender called WiMAX on the horizon – both LTE and WiMAX have some serious backers on each of their respective sides. However with WiMAX hitting obstacles (literally) with its data rates, and LTE having the native compatibility with 3GPP standards, I can see LTE winning out. That being the case, it should all be good news for Ericsson right? Well, potentially, but there are a number of Chinese vendors (I can think of one beginning with H for example….!) who are looking to win-out on any and every deal as they go through.
Right now, 4G is in its infancy – there are limited deployments going on at high cost – but give it a couple of years, and we are going to see small, multi-mode handsets which are roaming the 2G, 3G, and 4G networks – and a snowball effect of orders being made by Operators. It’s these deals that Ericsson will want to capitalise on, and the deployment with TeliaSonera is on those small (but good) first steps.
[Via: 3G.co.uk]