The world's first radio base station in a commercial 4G network has been deployed in Stockholm, Sweden. Or at least that's what the Swedish national incumbent telecommunications operator Telia has announced.
Telia is among a handful of mobile operators worldwide building next-generation networks for mobile broadband with 4G or LTE (Long Term Evolution) technology. The largest is Verizon, identified as a world leader by Ericsson CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg.
"The U.S. is back in the driver's seat and Verizon has taken the lead in rolling out LTE,"
Though Telia says it has connected the 4G base station to its IP network and to a test network belonging to Swedish telecom vendor Ericsson, commercial launch of the network is not expected until 2010, when modems will be available.
Expected speeds are "10 times faster than the speeds customers enjoy today with mobile broadband in 3G networks," according to Telia.
That would mean between 60 megabits and 100 megabits per second, given that today's 3G networks with HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) technology can attain 6Mbps to 10Mbps, depending on the version deployed.
One reason why Verizon is aggressively planning for a 4G network is that its 3G network, based on EV-DO (Evolution Data Optimized) technology, doesn't match the speeds possible in HSPA networks belonging to the GSM/WCDMA family, used by operators such as Telia and AT&T. GSM stands for Global System for Mobile Communications, while WCDMA is short for Wideband Code Division Multiple Access.
No comments:
Post a Comment