While the world looks towards Sweden, the very first country to launch LTE, and wonders when they too will be able to enjoy double digit megabit per second download speeds while on the go, many countries are only just now starting to talk about their LTE plans. We’ve got America, the most ambitious, probably due to being tired of being laughed at by the Europeans, launching LTE by the end of this year for Verizon, and in 2011 by AT&T. Germany, the largest market in Western Europe, is still undergoing frequency auctions, so their networks are at least a year or two before live. What about the Asian countries?
Huawei has the most to prove here since they want to be the world’s largest network infrastructure provider, so surely some Asian country, using Asian equipment, will have LTE soon … right? China Mobile is working on TD-LTE, and they have a test network up for the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, but that’s far from a commercial launch. What about Taiwan? They’re usually more advanced since they’re a much smaller nation, trying to carve out their own identity away from China, which is why I’m surprised to hear that sources say LTE isn’t going live until 2016.
They’re going to launch their LTE on the 700 MHz frequency, like the United States. Does this mean they’re going to lag behind? Depends on a lot of things. How quickly will phone manufactures pick up LTE? Will your mobile device even need more than 10 or 15 Mbps on the go? HSPA+ will be fine for a lot of folks, and during my interview with Dean Bubley he admits that we’re probably not going to see LTE devices hit the mass market until 2014.
That’s 4 years away, and again, a lot can happen during that time.
[Via: Digitimes]