NTT, Japan’s biggest wireless service provider, plans to shut off its 2G mobile phone network in March 2011 because most of its customers will have moved on to 3G, the company CEO said Wednesday in Hong Kong. NTT DoCoMo had previously said it would keep the 2G network running until December 2012.
The company plans to invest a total of $3.4 billion in LTE-based services over the next years. NTT DoCoMo plans to start offering LTE data cards in December 2010 and then handsets in 2011, he said, with coverage to be provided first in high-traffic areas. Ryuji Yamada, president and CEO of NTT DoCoMo, made the comment at the GSM Association’s Mobile Asia Congress 2009.
According to latest data from the GSM Association, there are now 42 LTE network commitments in 21 countries, with LTE deployments increasing by 35% over the past six months.
Chairman of China Mobile, also stated that China Mobile will demonstrate trial operation of the world’s first commercial TD-LTE network at the forthcoming Shanghai Expo 2010. A total of seven Taiwan-based companies and organizations, including HTC, Asustek, CHT and the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), have joined 3GPP for the development of related TD technology and products, most Taiwan-based network equipment makers are still focusing on the deployment of WiMAX products, pointed out the industry watchers.
WiMAX Deployments in the USA are mapped at the WiMAX Forum Congress site.
Paris-based Sequans, primarily a WiMax shop, recently announced plans to develop Long Term Evolution (LTE) and WiMax chips in tandem. Alcatel-Lucent and Motorola Ventures, led an investment round. Sequans says the new money will go toward LTE TD-TDD development while Qualcomm said it will launch chips supporting China’s homegrown TD-LTE technology in 2010.
According to a new report from IDC, HSPA technology, in both handsets and dongle form, experienced strong growth in Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) in the past 18 months. IDC forecasts 43.6 million HSPA connections in the region at the end of 2009.
