The LTE market is set to experience tough competition among major equipment vendors. At present, Nokia Siemens Networks leads the LTE market in terms of the number of deals.
Huawei Technologies, Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent hold the second, third and fourth positions, in terms of the number of deals
Nokia Siemens Networks has 22 commercial references for LTE at the end of 2010. The major LTE customers are Agri-Valley Communications, LightSquared, Mobily, NTT Docomo, Tele2, TeliaSonera, Zain Bahrain, and Verizon Wireless.
Net4Mobility, TeliaSonera and Vodafone Germany are some of the main deals of Huawei.
Recently, Ericsson won the LTE contract with US carrier AT&T. This may be a boost for Ericsson to achieve similar deals in other LTE markets.
In May, Huawei signed a contract with the UK’s Everything Everywhere. Everything Everywhere runs T-Mobile (UK) and Orange (UK). As part of the deal, Huawei will upgrade Everything Everywhere’s base stations, enhancing the networks of the company to evolve it for LTE in the coming years.
The LTE market is growing. There are more than 100 LTE network commitments from communications service providers worldwide. Nokia Siemens has 38 LTE commitments in the current year.
Nokia-Siemens focuses on innovation and sustainability. Nokia Siemens Networks has upgraded portions of T-Mobile USA’s 4G (HSPA+) network, the most widely deployed 4G network. T-Mobile and Nokia Siemens Networks have been working together for more than a year to drive the standardization of Long Term HSPA Evolution.
There are about 18 live LTE networks including Verizon and NTT DoCoMo. LTE, currently with over 350,000 connections, will cross 300 million connections worldwide by the year 2015.
The GSA has confirmed that 218 operators are now investing in LTE. According to GSA, 166 firm commercial LTE network deployments have planned in 62 countries.
The arrival of LTE has caused a big reshuffle in the distribution of IPR wealth, according to new research from Informa Telecoms & Media. Previously, 2G, 3G, and 3.5G IPR was dominated by Qualcomm, Nokia, and Ericsson but with the arrival of new players such as Samsung, LG and Huawei, have improved their patent collection for LTE compared to previous operators and now, they are increasing in the LTE planet.
By the end of 2011, 140 markets will be covered with LTE coverage. By 2013, Verizon is aiming to engulf at least 2/3 of the U.S. with LTE.
However, in developing country like India, 4G is far away and so the only migration path for the country is to take the LTE route. The year 2012 is to be declared the year of the LTE, as it is gearing up for a widespread rollout by operators in the country.
By Abhilasha Sharma
editor@telecomlead.com
