Verizon and Japanese cellcos approach LTE at breakneck speed

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Verizon and Japanese cellcos approach LTE at breakneck speed

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 8 May, 2009

READ MORE: Verizon | LTE | Japan

Early LTE movers continue to set themselves aggressive roll-out targets, with Japan and the US leading the way. The four Japanese cellcos are expected to spend a total of one trillion yen ($10bn) over five years on the technology, while Verizon Wireless is sticking to its goal of completing its LTE deployment by 2013, which could spell an early death for its EV-DO network (though the voice platform will survive for at least another decade). AT&T is far more cautious about its own LTE timescales, but may be embarking on early trials at least, with Ericsson reported to be taking part.

The Swedish vendor, at its Capital Markets Day this week, was eagerly talking up its claim to be in pole position to sell into the early LTE contracts, having already got a major share - with Alcatel-Lucent - of the first of these, at Verizon. It may struggle more in Japan, where many of leader NTT DoCoMo's early tests of pre-standard kit have been with homegrown suppliers like Fujitsu. Yet it will be important to get a foothold in this market, where the Nikkei newspaper reports that the four cellcos - DoCoMo, KDDI, Softbank and eMobile - will be able to apply for licenses early next year, and will proceed to spend $10bn between them on networks between then and 2014. DoCoMo wants to launch commercial services next year and has set aside $4bn for infrastructure, while the others will follow in 2011 to 2012. In a broadband hungry market where capacity will be key - to support likely 300% penetration of mobile devices by 2012 - KDDI is adopting a multi-network strategy. It has the lead share in the UQ Communications venture to deploy WiMAX nationally in 2.5GHz; recently became the first CDMA operator to commit to the upcoming Rev B for the EV-DO data network; and has a medium term LTE plan once it can acquire additional spectrum.

Verizon Wireless, by contrast with KDDI, has not shown interest in Rev B, and at the Ericsson event its CTO Tony Melone made it clear the cellco aims to shut down EV-DO at a an early stage and transfer data traffic to the more spectrally efficient, IP-based LTE system. But as both the GSM and CDMA communities wrestle with standards for handing off voice traffic to legacy 2G and 3G networks, or for supporting VoIP effectively, operators will be stuck with their existing, (and highly efficient), circuit switched networks for many years to come, to support carrier class voice. Although Verizon has been one of the most aggressive operators about deploying VoIP within its own variant on IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) - a 'big bang' approach from which most cellcos are nervously holding back - it will still continue to use its CDMA 1xRTT for a large proportion of voice traffic at least until 2018.

For data though, "it is in best interest to blanket the country with LTE as soon as possible", Melone said, promising "phase four trials" in 700MHz soon, followed by first commercial markets in 2010 (a timescale that has already slid by a few months) and then "rapid deployment" in 2011 and 2012, in the 700MHz, 850MHz and 1.9GHz bands. Roger Gurnani, senior VP of product development at Verizon Wireless, was recently reported by Unstrung to be planning to build out its full LTE footprint within two to three years of first deployments in 2010 (though, of course, the full footprint may not necessarily equate to universal coverage).

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