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LTE devices - soon to be in hand?

It was hardly a year ago at CTIA Wireless 2009 that Samsung revealed the Mondi, their first mobile Internet device (MID) for mobile WiMAX.  The Mondi was the manifestation of a long-anticipated device for the Clear WiMAX network.  A year later, the anticipation is shifting to LTE devices.  CTIA Wireless 2010 attendees will no doubt be pushing for a glimpse, a word or a whisper of up and coming LTE devices and especially a smartphone or MID. 

More than 70 operators from around the globe are either deploying, undertaking trials or have announced plans for LTE.  One of those 70 operators in the US is Verizon.  Dick Lynch, Verizon Communications CTO announced at Mobile World Congress 2009 that the company would proceed with Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson as vendors in their initial deployment.  At MWC 2010 Lynch said their plan is on track and that deployments in 25 to 30 cities would be completed in 2010.  But completing deployments is just part of the LTE challenge; what about the devices?

The need for an LTE-capable MID or smartphone is clear (absolutely no pun intended here!) however in Verizon’s case such a device won’t be immediately available in 2010 market launches.  Anthony Melone, CTO of Verizon Wireless explained in a recent Wall Street Journal article that handsets will be available 3 to 6 months after service launch or mid-2011.  Initially the only devices available will be USB dongles, a number of which are currently being evaluated by Verizon.

HTC announced late last year that it would be supplying China Mobile with a TD-LTE handset for test at Expo 2010 Shanghai, which is now just a little over 6 weeks away.  Also, 4G chipmaker Sequans Communications announced yesterday that it too will be providing a TD-LTE device for the test network.  Working with partners Motorola and Alcatel-Lucent, the first Sequans LTE product, the SQN3010 will power an LTE band class 40 USB dongle.

So what vendor’s LTE devices might we expect to hear or see at CTIA?  Will it be Samsung, who announced last year that it would be producing a handset for MetroPCS’s LTE network, which has been slated to launch in late 2010?  Will it be Kyocera, who also announced late last year that it would be developing LTE-capable Android-based phones in 2010 and 2011?  Cox Communications, completed LTE trials in San Diego and Phoenix earlier this year and it is widely expected that Cox will soon announce plans for deployment.  Cox worked with Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei for the trials - will we learn who a potential device partner could be?

Despite being on the heels of MWC, there’s still plenty of anticipation of exciting news and cool new products for CTIA.

Источник: 4G Trends

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