LTE gets into gear. Now don't over rev the engine!

2009 was the year that technology talk turned to LTE. In February, at the Mobile World Congress, Verizon CTO Dick Lynch announced his choice of main vendors (Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson) for the operator’s aggressive deployment plans and promised coverage in 25 to 30 markets in 2010, covering approximately 100 million people. Although Europe’s TeliaSonera has stolen an early march on Verizon by this week switching on the world's first commercial LTE networks in Oslo and Stockholm, Verizon remains the 'one-to-watch' for many, based on its size and status.

By the end of the year a number of major global operators – including Telefonica and SingTel – were planning to trial the technology in various markets, whilst other operators (for example, MetroPCS and NTT Docomo) are promising commercial launches in 2010. GSMA Intelligence believes that 58 operators worldwide have already committed to LTE plans, trials or deployments. Interestingly, some operators such as Vodafone are content to extend the life of their existing HSPA networks rather than move to LTE in the short-term.

Setting realistic goals and keeping a lid on hype will be critical to early-mover LTE success in 2010. Verizon should be applauded for publicly stating that average downlink data rates per user are likely to be in the range of 5-12 Mb/s, whilst, worringly, other operators and vendors continue to bang the 'theoretical peak 100 Mb/s' drum. Frustratingly, TeliaSonera is marketing its LTE service as '4G', a technology that hasn't even yet been officially defined. At least it has set very attractive prices for launch. Next year's global launches of LTE services will be accessed via dongles, with embedded modems following. LTE will not become a mass-market phenomenon until 2012 at the very earliest, by which time LTE handsets will be in general supply and the technology issues of providing voice services over LTE will be fully resolved.

LTE's biggest technology competitor, WiMAX, had a mixed 2009. Although WiMAX's largest service provider supporters - Clearwire and Sprint Nextel - launched networks in major markets, subscriber takeup remains relatively low. Towards the end of the year Clearwire received a boost with new investment totalling almost US$2.3 billion but, with US rival Verizon set to unveil LTE in 2010, the window of opportunity for Clearwire is closing fast.

(This article is part of a series of predictions for 2010 from the GSMA Intelligence team.)