Huawei today announced the formation of the Global 700M Industry Alliance that will assist the adoption of 700MHz mobile broadband spectrum. Telecom New Zealand will chair the program.
Chris Quin, CEO of Telecom Retail at Telecom New Zealand, will be the chairman of the Global 700M Industry Alliance.
The alliance will finalize its objectives and other details soon.
Members of Global 700M Industry Alliance believe that 2014 and 2015 will be critical years for developing the 700M industry chain. They feel that there is a need to accelerate development of lower cost LTE devices as an important part of enabling more rapid spectrum allocation and adoption of LTE worldwide.
Several mobile devices supporting 700MHz are expected to be available by mid-2014. Subscribers are expected to be able to purchase “future ready” devices ahead of the launch of the new spectrum.
With high relevance for rural wide coverage and urban indoor coverage due to low-frequency transmissions, 700MHz will help operators greatly reduce initial network construction costs and shorten time to LTE deployment, said Huawei in a statement issued today.
As of January 2014, more than 30 countries have announced plans to deploy LTE on 700MHz, with five or more APT700 networks to be deployed in 2014.
