Dan Jones, Site Editor for Unstrung, says Verizon Wireless may complete its nationwide deployment of proto-4G Long-Term Evolution (LTE) technology by 2014.
That’s the impression that Roger Gurnani, senior VP of product development at Verizon Wireless gives on his UNTV interview from CTIA. He runs down the timetable of Verizon’s planned LTE deployment of a couple of test markets in 2009 and “30 or so” markets in 2010. He then suggests that the buildout could be completed relatively quickly after that. (See CTIA 2009: Verizon LTE Goin’ Steady.) You can watch the whole interview here:
Verizon will be using LTE equipment from Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson AB. (See Unstrung: MWC 2009: Verizon Picks LTE Vendors.)
Clearwire expects to launch its CLEAR 4G mobile Internet service covering up to 120 million people in more than 80 cities by 2010. Cities such as Atlanta, Las Vegas, Baltimore, Chicago, Charlotte, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Honolulu, Philadelphia, and Seattle are expected to be covered in the Mobile WiMAX cloud in 2009.
Unstrung’s Dan Jones also talked with Sprint’s Barry West (video) about their WiMAX network last week at CTIA.
Clear’s WiMAX Innovation Network will initially cover more than 20 square miles in Silicon Valley. Service is expected to be available to developers by late summer of this year. Cisco Systems will provide core Internet Protocol Next-Generation Network (IP NGN) infrastructure equipment.
South Korea launched the world’s first commercial Mobile WiMAX service in June 2006. Samsung is currently doing business with 23 major operators in 19 countries, including Clearwire in the US, UQ Communications in Japan and Yota in Russia.
Sweden and Norway were among the first to auction 4G licenses last spring. TeliaSonera won 2.6 GHz licenses in paired bands. That spectrum is being identified all over the world for 4G. In the United States, Sprint and Clearwire have already acquired the bulk of that spectrum.
In January, Sweden’s largest mobile operator, TeliaSonera (press releases), announced plans to commercially deploy LTE next year. TeliaSonera chose Ericsson for the initial 4G city network in Stockholm and Huawei for the initial 4G city network in Oslo. TeliaSonera plans LTE service over its newly won 2.6GHz spectrum and plans to launch commercial services for consumers and businesses in 2010 with 60 percent of the population covered by 2011.
Tele2 Sweden and Telenor Sweden – the country’s second- and third-largest operators, respectively – announced plans today to jointly build a nationwide LTE network. They will share spectrum in the 900MHz and 2600MHz frequency bands. Buildout will begin this year, with service launch expected by the end of 2010. No announcement was made on choice of network suppliers.
TeliaSonera has built a fiber broadband in Denmark, and is active in Northern and Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Spain, with a total of 106 million mobile customers (2007). It is headquartered in Stockholm. Telenor has controlling interests in mobile operations in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Ukraine, Hungary, Montenegro, Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Pakistan with minority interests in mobile operations in Russia.
Now that TeliaSonera, Tele 2, and Telenor Sweden have firmed up their plans for the 2.6 GHz spectrum they won in an auction last May, there are two other license holders that have not revealed plans — namely Hi3G (with 900 Mhz spectrum) and Intel Capital (with 50MHz of TDD (Time Division Duplex) spectrum in the 2.6GHz band).
Meanwhile, Telus, Canada’s No. 2 phone company, plans to spend more than C$700 million ($578.5 million) this year bringing HSPA to the western province of Alberta, the company said today. It’s similar to the upgrade in its home province of British Columbia. Telus has signed an agreement with Nokia Siemens Networks to create an overlay HSPA network that will run along side their existing CDMA network. The new network should be complete by the beginning of 2010.
Telus (6.1 million wireless subscribers), lags behind Rogers Wireless (7.3 million wireless subscribers) and BCE’s Bell Mobility (over 6.5 mobile subscribers) in cellular penetration.
Telus is working with BCE — one of its main rivals and the country’s biggest telecom company — on an LTE network upgrade. It’s not unlike the Verizon/Vodaphone deal, with a forklift upgrade from CDMA in many of its service areas — except Telus will make a stop for HSPA, first.
Overlaying HSPA on both the Telus and Bell Canada national network will enable the most efficient upgrade path to the 4G LTE, say the companies.
Sharing is the new thing for mobile networks, says the Economist. Telefónica and Vodafone are sharing network infrastructure in several European countries. And three big European operators — France Telecom, KPN and Vodafone also said they’ll outsource the running of their networks to equipment-makers.
