Tag Archive: LTE

While many of us come to grips with 3G, handset maker Nokia is already looking ahead to 4G. In fact, it sees its 4G standard, Long Term Evolution (LTE) as thefuture, rather than Intel-backed competitor Wimax. And it’s signed up some big names – Sony Ericsson, NEC and Alacatel-Lucent – to create a licensing framework for their patents for LTE, according to the BBC.   LTE claims to cover a wider distance and be faster than Wimax, and it’s already being rolled out in China and the US. The group is touting LTE as theanswer for cellphones, as well as a replacement for Wi-Fi connections, and have said they intend to keep LTE royalty payments low to help the emerging technology succeed.  

Every now and again, a company gives up on promoting its technology (and patent portfolio) as a future-building platform for the entire industry, and concedes the competition has managed to define the market despite their efforts. You won’t find any words to that effect from Qualcomm, but the company has just announced that future MDM9xxx-series chipsets will support Long Term Evolution (LTE) in favor of Qualcomm’s own UMB mobile broadband technology—a possible grudging concession that LTE has gained momentum while no carriers have embraced UMB.

Although it’s not news that Verizon Wireless has been eyeing Long Term Evolution (LTE) as the basis for future high-speed wireless communications options, the company formally let the cat out of the bag today, with co-owners Verizon and Vodafone announcing a partnership that will have the companies launching a coordinated LTE trial in 2008. Often referred to as a “4G” mobile technology, LTE offers theoretical download rates of 100 Mbit/s and upload rates of 50 Mbit/s for every 20 MHz of spectrum available to the technology.