Ericsson, TeliaSonera Go Live with First 4G LTE Network
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TeliaSonera customers in downtown Stockholm, Sweden, are now enjoying the world's first 4G, LTE network, thanks to technology from Ericsson and LTE dongles from Samsung. The super-quick network reportedly makes it easy to send and receive even HD video on the go.
European carrier TeliaSonera is now host to the world's first 4G, LTE mobile
broadband commercial network, Ericsson announced Dec 14.
The LTE network, made available through technology from Ericsson, covers the
downtown of Stockholm, Sweden,
where Ericsson's headquarters is located.
"The new era of mobile broadband has just begun today," said Carl-Henric
Svanberg, president and CEO of Ericsson, in
a statement. "With LTE, so-called 4G, your mobile broadband experience is
moving to unequalled levels. The LTE speed gives you an absolutely effortless
feeling of broadband access."
Ericsson describes the LTE as being capable of transferring "huge amounts of
data" in a cost- and energy-efficient way that makes over-the-air transactions
feel more like over fiber to the end user. Online services, even streaming HD
video, can be enjoyed "effortlessly on the move," the company said in its
statement. TeliaSonera customers can access the network via LTE dongles from
Samsung.
"We are very proud to be the first operator in the world to offer our
customers 4G services," Kenneth Karlberg, president of TeliaSonera, added in
the statement. "Thanks to the successful cooperation with Ericsson we can offer
4G to our customers in Stockholm
earlier than originally planned."
In the United States,
Verizon Wireless and AT&T plan to launch LTE networks in 2010. In
August, Verizon announced it had completed its first successful LTE data calls
in Boston and Seattle; Ericsson was involved in Seattle,
while Alcatel-Lucent was a partner in Boston.
Verizon plans to launch 30 LTE networks in 2010, before working up to
nationwide coverage in 2013.
Competing
against LTE in the 4G space is WiMax, which Sprint is a supporter of in the United
States and which already has 4 million subscribers worldwide, according to a
Oct. 20 report from analysis firm Marvedis. The firm additionally reported
that of the top 35 mobile operators committed to LTE, 37 percent are planning a
commercial rollout in 2010, while 29 percent are shooting for 2011 and 25
percent for 2012.
In
a Dec. 3 report, ABI Research described the state of WiMax as currently
something of a mixed bag and predicted that the "LTE ecosystem will eventually
be vastly larger than the mobile WiMax ecosystem."
Ericsson said in its statement that is has completed the commercialization of
its LTE products, and larger production and is ready for additional deployments.
