GSA Confirms 50% Increase in LTE Network Commitments

August 27, 2009: A new survey by the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) just released confirms there are now 39 LTE network commitments worldwide. This is an increase of 50% compared to a similar survey undertaken by GSA in March 2009, and confirms the growing commitment and support for LTE as the next generation mobile broadband system of choice. Mobile broadband services enabled by HSPA systems are a great success and commercially available in 115 countries worldwide. LTE will further boost network throughputs significantly, improve spectrum and operational efficiencies and performance, and reduce latency for the next step in the user experience.

LTE standardization is complete and approved by 3GPP within Release 8, and is the basis for initial LTE deployments worldwide. The LTE standard supports both FDD and TDD modes with the same specification and hardware components. With the HSPA mobile broadband eco-system in place, LTE is the natural migration choice for GSM/HSPA network operators.

As a result of collaboration between 3GPP, 3GPP2 and IEEE, there is a roadmap for CDMA operators to evolve to LTE. It is clear that LTE is the next generation mobile broadband system of choice also for many CDMA operators, particularly leading players. Successful handovers between CDMA and LTE networks were demonstrated and announced in August 2009, showing how activities such as video downloading and web surfing were maintained as the user moved between LTE & CDMA coverage areas.

The LTE-TDD mode, (TD-LTE) provides a future-proof evolutionary path for TD-SCDMA, another 3GPP standard. As a result we have with LTE one single global standard, which in turn will secure and drive even higher economies of scale and, importantly, also simplify roaming.

The Evolution to LTE Information Paper published by GSA on August 26, 2009 confirms:

39 LTE network commitments in 19 countries
14 LTE networks anticipated to be in service by end 2010
31 LTE networks anticipated to be in service by end 2012

Evolution to LTE is available as a free download to registered site users at www.gsacom.com

(registration only takes a minute at http://www.gsacom.com/php/register_form.php4)

LTE charts and maps also available at www.gsacom.com/news/statistics.php4

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