By Telecom Lead Team: Ericsson is leading the LTE RAN standard
contributions, according to ABI Research. Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks
together had the second highest number of contributions, followed by Huawei.
Companies work within standards groups to make
contributions, which are approved through voting.
From 2005 until 1H 2011, Ericsson has made the most
approved contributions to the LTE RAN standard. This is one of several reasons
why Ericsson is a leader in LTE,” said Philip Solis, research director, mobile
devices.
In 2009, Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks were the
leading contributors. During 2010 and during H1 2011, Huawei was the leading
contributor.
This analysis was done for 3GPP RAN1 to 3GPP RAN3 for
LTE-specific contributions. Including HSPA radio contributions that are
applicable to LTE is another way of looking at this and would have produced
different rankings.
Of the top 15 contributors, nine are from Asia-Pacific,
four are from Europe (Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Nokia/NSN, and Vodafone), and
two are from North America (Motorola and Qualcomm).
Of those nine Asia-Pacific contributors, three are based
in China (CATT, Huawei, and ZTE), three in Japan (NEC, NTT DoCoMo, and
Panasonic), two in South Korea (LG Electronics and Samsung), and one in Taiwan
(HTC).
Of the top 15 contributors’ contributions, the top two
had nearly one-third of the contributions, the top four had over half of the
contributions, the top six had over two-thirds of the contributions, and the
top seven had nearly three-quarters of the total contributions.
Companies’ contributions are indirectly related to
patents, but are still a means of detecting which companies are pushing their
intellectual property into the standard. It is interesting to see how some of
the European and American companies have held leading positions in the shift
from 3G to 4G and many Asia-Pacific companies especially in China, Japan, and
South Korea make up a large portion of the top fifteen contributors.