BARCELONA — Fourth generation networks and specifically LTE (Long Term Evolution) may be one of the major talking points here at the Mobile World Congress, but the messages are unclear about what their impact will be in the short term.

Some of Europe's leading operators, including Vodafone, France Telecom (Orange) and T-Mobile, all seemed reticent about committing to the huge infrastructure capex that will be needed in rolling out LTE, all suggesting it will be at least two to three years before they do, in part because of the slowdown in the economy and also because of the need to reassure investors.

Indeed, on the first day of MWC, operator Vodafone said it had trialled a 3G HSPA+ (High Speed Packet Access) wireless broadband that delivers a theoretical maximum of 20Mbits/s, using MIMO technology, suggesting this will meet customers' expectations in the short term. The comment suggests Vodafone believes there is no huge urgency to move to LTE, and the mood is the same at Orange.

Didier Lombard, CEO of Orange, said it was understandable that the infrastructure suppliers were eager to push their LTE capable gear, but any large scale roll-out is unnecessary for at least two years.

The gear for Vodafone's HSPA+ trials, in its Spanish operations, came from Ericsson, Huawei and Qualcomm Inc.

Ericsson CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg noted that, while his company is determined to push itself as a leader in LTE, the bulk of mobile broadband deployments in the coming five years will be based on HSPA, which is available now and for which handsets and dongles are a main attraction at the Congress.

"For some operators, the case for pushing on HSPA and HSPA+ is a strong one as they clearly need to recoup their investments. But for some others, such as Verizon Wireless in the U.S., the need for LTE is clearer as they cannot upgrade their W-CDMA networks," Svanberg told EE Times .

He noted that many of the early LTE adopters are likely to be those operators that are currently using a 2G or 3G network technology, such as CDMA, that does not provide a migration to LTE via HSPA, and operators that have deployed 3G networks using platforms that are not easy to migrate to LTE and true 4G technologies.

Svanberg was talking at an event where Australian operator Telstra said it would extend its Next G HSPA+ based network to offer 42Mbits/s by the end of the year. Telstra was launching its 21Mbits/s capable peak rated mobile broadband modem at the event, in collaboration with Ericsson, Qualcomm and Sierra Wireless.

Paul Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm, which has already announced it plans to offer LTE capable chip-sets by the end of the year, told EE Times there will certainly be LTE deployments over the next two years, with some operators pushing harder than others.

"The reality is that LTE does not seem to offer any significant advantage in spectral efficiency. With the latest MIMO technology and high order modulation, you can get the high order data rates with HSPA+ that people need now. But of course we will support both technologies with chipsets, and not just for handsets but also for extensions such as femtocells for improved indoor coverage."

Sierra Wirelesss CEO Jason Cohenour revealed that as well as the Turbo 21 for the Australian market, and the HSPA+ capable USB modem launched a few weeks ago, the company is readying an embedded module to support OEMs developing devices faster than the Telstra 21 delivers.

Related Articles

Mobile Congress to debate benefits of Long Term Evolution

LTE basestation suppliers address software balance

Ceva targets DSP cores at 4G mobiles, infrastructure