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Networks & Infrastructure
Developed nations are early LTE adopters, but emerging markets will provide growth spurt
Asia is upfront developing the new ecosystem
by Ek Heng, Asia-Pacific Correspondent
As trials pick up pace on Long Term Evolution (LTE), Asian telecom equipment and device makers are in the thick with their western counterparts and telco clients in testing the efficacy of this 4G technology, fine-tuning its applications and developing the ecosystem.
While developed markets led by U.S. and Japan are early adopters, the emerging markets like China will contribute to explosive growth just before 2015, according to Pyramid Research. Pyramid Research expects LTE usage to grow at a rate of more than 400 percent from 2010 to 2012 exceeding the uptake of any previous mobile technology including 3G.
A survey by the Global Mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) shows that by end October there were 42 telcos in 21 countries committed to LTE, of which 16 are from Asia Pacific. Dozens of trials are currently underway and a total of 15 LTE networks will be in commercial service by end 2010.
East Asian technology leaders participating in many LTE trials
Technology players from East Asia are involved in many trials within and beyond the Asia Pacific testing the efficacy of LTE networks as well as international handover and interoperability issues with existing mobile and fixed line communications. The other facets of trials cover non-consumer issues such as network and traffic management of this 4G technology which has to handle much more data intensive applications.
Japan’s technology contributions range from NEC offering a very compact outdoor LTE wireless base station through to the joint development of new generation LTE handset chip. Based on standards of the third generation partnership project (3GPP), the LTE-PF chipset will forego the need for handset makers to develop proprietary technologies, thereby offering faster time-to-market in the production of basic mobile phones. The joint developers, DoCoMo, NEC, Panasonic Mobile and Fujitsu are looking to license the technology to handset manufacturers globally.
China’s role is reflected in the industry standing achieved by ZTE Corporation which has been nominated the ‘Top 3’ global LTE network infrastructure vendor by international technology research firm, Gartner.
China, Japan and South Korea in step with the best industry innovators
Its competitor, Huawei has also had a busy year having reportedly finished over 20 field tests and trials with the world’s top telcos like China Mobile, Telenor and Vodafone. As early as mid-2009, it worked with Netcom, a subsidiary of TeliaSonera to successfully demonstrate live services over a commercial LTE network in Oslo, Norway.And recently it completed the world’s first LTE self-organizing network test with T-Mobile in Austria. Huawei’s more than 3,000 LTE/SAE patent contributions towards standardization bodies provide insight into its prolific research capabilities.
On a different front, South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and Huawei are collaborating on interoperability tests of LTE network infrastructure and terminals in Europe. The project involves Huawei providing LTE networks and Samsung supplying LTE modems. Meanwhile Samsung and Ericsson announced they have achieved interoperability using the South Korean-made LTE devices on live LTE network in Stockholm, Sweden. Among other trials, LG Electronics and Nortel demonstrated it is feasible to handover data transmission between LTE and CDMA networks using a M13 terminal developed by the South Korean company, working with Verizon Wireless and Qualcomm. The M13 provides the foundation for building of consumer devices which are expected to be available in 2010.
The successful migration and adoption of this 4G platform hinges on the availability of standard LTE compliant networks, terminals and products, and Asian telecom equipment and device makers are fulfilling a role to give users a wider choice in the variety of devices.
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