H.G. Bauer: 26th Febr 09 'Mobile World Congress'
Is LTE Infrastructure ready for roll-out? Verizon, as expected, announced their LTE suppliers, with the lion's share going to Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson. Even though Verizon insists on some deployments in 2009, it looks like it will be mainly for fixed access. Together with Verizon, Vodafone and China Mobile seem to lead the LTE drive around the world, but generally more cautious with large-scale deployment dates. Vodafone is looking at 2010-2012, while AT&T was quoted as targeting mid 2010 to have the key components in place. We believe that CAPEX limitations will push LTE deployments out further. T-Mobile had LTE demonstration with Nortel and LG equipment in Barcelona, connecting them to Germany, and showing video streaming applications. In fact, LG claims first LTE data card demonstrations. Also, Huawei claimed the first commercial contract for LTE in the world. Testing suppliers are also ramping up with LTE drive test systems, such as from Agilent, and others. Orange, T-Mobile and other European operators are all looking at 2011 as the timeframe for serious roll-out of LTE. At the same time, ABI Research was quoted as predicting that by 2013, operators around the world will spend $8.6 Billion on LTE base-station infrastructure.
HSPA is where the money is! Even though there has been lots of hype around LTE, HSPA is and will continue to be the major revenue focus for suppliers. Interestingly, according to In-Stat, Huawei has secured 42 new UMTS / HSPA contracts in 2008, representing 40% of the market-share. Does this mean other (mostly European) suppliers are focusing too much on LTE and taking their "eyes off the ball"? Telstra is the first operator to launch HSPA+ service that offers peak rates of 21 Mbps, using modems jointly developed by Telstra, Ericsson, Qualcomm and Sierra Wireless. Telstra is planning to upgrade the HSPA+ network to provide max speeds of 42 Mbps by year-end. It is fair to say that Telstra may not need LTE for a long time! Ericsson has already demonstrated HSPA+ multi-carrier technology with 42 Mbps in Barcelona. China Unicom, which received 3G license last month, plans to launch HSPA service in May, and have 80K base-stations deployed by year-end, covering 70% of Chinese population, an impressive commitment!
Is it WiMAX time? There was some uncertainty around WiMAX deployments and vendor initiatives related to WIMAX. Alcatel-Lucent's approach is not clear, while ZTE is taking advantage of the WiMAX opportunities in the developing markets. Moreover, discussions around peer-to-peer city-wide Wi-Fi networks and increasing number of Wi-Fi enabled handsets may certainly not augur well for WiMAX deployments in developed markets. Generally, WiMAX was very low key at this event.
Femto what? Several Femto products were demonstrated, including Ubiquisys & SerComm announcing the availability of their integrated home gateway with 3G Femtocell technology, and Netgear showcasing its 3G Femtocell Voice gateway delivering converged network services. Several operators are looking at Femto deployments as part of the transition from 3G / HSPA to LTE in the future. It is fair to say that Femto has more religious followers than rational drivers!