America Has Become the LTE Role Model

This is the launch of The View from Abroad, a planned monthly column that will look at smartphone technologies and products from around the world that may have an impact on U.S. market and purchase decisions.

Last month, I visited the United States for the first time in over a year. The occasion was the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show, where one of the most talked about subjects was LTE technology, which was somewhat surprising for me. I remembered my previous trips to America because mobile networks I used then were significantly underdeveloped compared to those in Europe, technologically speaking. This time, I could be among the first persons in the world to test a commercial LTE network with real smartphones, months ahead of any other place in the world.

Current 3G packet data services, much like the nearly forgotten 2G technologies, arrived to the U.S. only after being commercially launched in many other developed countries. Largely, this was understandable -- it was far more difficult to construct a network on such a geographically large area for any carrier than the case of European or most Asian countries. From these experiences, they learned to make 2G and 3G networks more reliable, usable, and safe.

On the other hand, America took over as an innovative leader when it comes to 4G technologies, and regardless of problems the size of the country brings, it was among the very first to set up a Mobile WiMAX network, a HSPA+ network and now an LTE network. This time, U.S. carriers and equipment manufacturers could not learn much about the performances of these technologies, simply because there are too few of them in other countries. LTE has only been rolled out in Austria, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Japan, and Uzbekistan and Mobile WiMAX in some Baltic countries.

Why Was America First to 4G?
I wondered what caused this switch. Has America intentionally or accidentally taken over the LTE initiative? Was it simply because CES is held a month before the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and carriers at both shows have to support phone manufacturers by launching the network with the most advanced technology? Or perhaps it is because users in the States understand 4G better than anyone else? Finally, another possible reason could be that America has only a few carriers compared to several hundred on my continent, which is how many there are due to state borders.

Talking to the representatives of local carriers and regulatory bodies, it turned out that the reasons were somewhat different. CES is held before the MWC every year, so we saw phones with new technologies only in Barcelona, while understanding abbreviations like LTE, HSPA, WCDMA, EDGE and others is the same among users everywhere in the world -- only the biggest technology enthusiasts know their actual meaning (and how unjustified it is to call "LTE "4G technology).

State borders have a little to do with losing the title of innovative telecommunications leader, after all, as the secret is in switching over from analog to digital TV broadcasting. America has long since turned to digital television and this process is currently under way in Europe -- some countries have completed it, some are in the middle of it, while others have not started yet. The advantage that America has and Europe does not is that LTE technology makes sense only if it is used on the so-called "digital dividend", i.e. bandwidth which is released when analog TV signal stops being broadcast.

The portion of the wireless spectrum that is freed up by this process is near rather low frequencies (approximately 800 MHz), which is optimal for LTE. Given the fact that signals broadcasted on lower frequencies are more penetrative, i.e. greater signal coverage and penetration through solid objects like tall buildings, can be achieved with fewer base stations. LTE network construction is far more practical in this spectrum. The problem with Europe is that this band is not yet available in all countries.

For instance, there are countries which have switched over to digital TV broadcasting and whose regulators have awarded digital dividend to carriers, but they adjoin countries where the signal is still analog. Collision arises along bordering areas, seeing how TV networks intentionally amplify their signal so that their channels are visible in the neighboring country as well, which interferes with the LTE network. Only when all these countries switch to digital TV signals will LTE be potentially as lucrative a technology as it is in the USA.

Still, there is no time to spare on waiting, and those who cannot launch a low frequency network will do so with high frequency, irrespective of the cost. At the upcoming World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, we will witness an additional LTE technology boom -- there will be new LTE phones, new LTE modems, new LTE equipment, new LTE networks... all of these novelties will land on the American market as well, which already has the LTE groundwork fully laid out.

About Dragan Petric
For the last fifteen years, Dragan Petric has been working as an IT journalist, editor and analyst, with special interests in telecommunication technologies and services. In addition, he authored five books and published over 2,500 articles in many magazines and newspapers in Europe. He has attended about 30 telecommunications and IT congresses around the world and won several journalists awards for his work.