Future of LTE at Computex

Wireless industry heavyweights NTT DoCoMo, Alcatel-Lucent, Qualcomm, and Anritsu co-hosted a keynote on Long Term Evolution (LTE) implementation and its impact at Computex this week.
With 3G reaching prime penetration, LTE is an effective and realistic evolutionary solution that serves the needs of both carriers and users.

Carriers have struggled to keep up with the explosion of wireless bandwidth demand by rolling out 3G towers with increasing density.
However, the prevalence of unlimited data plans have restricted revenue growth (as evidenced by AT&T’s recent plan changes) despite the added costs of ever increasing traffic leading to dissatisfied customers and frustration from all parties with the current state of technology.

LTE is an optimal solution as it expands existing 3G bandwidth while reducing latency to near current day wireline levels.
From the carrier perspective, much of the existing 3G hardware can be reused.  The existing 3G antennas connect to new digital LTE modules which link in to existing UMTS base station fiber links.
This allows for a simple, cost-effective, rolling implementation based on real-world demand and adoption rates.

Carriers also learned a lot from last generation’s disruptive technology advance primarily due incompatibility of 2G and 3G equipment.  That gap caused delayed general adoption of 3G by years and lead to increased costs for manufacturers, carriers, and users.  Even today, global sales of 2G chips still outstrip 3G chips despite the maturity of both technologies.
Instead, future mobile devices will be equipped with LTE with full backwards compatibility with current 3G standards.  This plan should boost LTE adoption rates and deliver exceptional quality of service in early adoption areas while still guaranteeing acceptable 3G performance in outlying regions.  Carriers are planning to rely on LTE at least through 2025 while simultaneously overlaying incompatible full 4G networks beginning in 2015.

Additionally, as with each wireless generation iteration, cost to deliver the bandwidth reduces by an order of magnitude which benefits everyone.  Recognizing the numerous implementation, quality of service, and cost benefits of LTE, carriers will begin adoption of LTE very quickly with consumers gaining access to compatible hardware at accessible price points much faster than in the previous 3G generation.
Consumers can expect delivery of new services previously impossible due to bandwidth limitations.  Instead of just faster web browsing and data sharing, real-time services such as full-resolution two-way video and lag-free gaming become possible.  Carriers and 3^rd party providers are already thinking up creative ways to take advantage of ubiquitous bandwidth.