Three questions for Håkan Eriksson

We asked Håkan Eriksson three questions about why he stood behind the 3GPP-based Long-Term Evolution (LTE) standard when others were touting WiMAX technology, and why he believes LTE will lead the way to the 4G future.

What was the argument you presented that helped to deflate the hype surrounding WiMAX?
In this industry, there are 30 mobile handsets sold every second. It does not matter if you think one technology is better than another, because the sheer economy of scale becomes the most important factor. We already have more than 300 million subscriptions on the WCDMA/HSPA standard – a 3GPP track that will lead to LTE. Mobile WiMAX subscriptions are estimated to reach 100 million by 2013. By then, the estimate is that there will be 1.2 billion WCDMA/HSPA subscribers. That is more than a tenfold scale advantage. What’s more, WiMAX’s performance cannot match the capacity of HSPA. So not only is WiMAX’s market share smaller, it loses in terms of performance also.

How is LTE gaining momentum among carriers today?
There is no doubt LTE has emerged as the dominant path leading to 4G. Many operators have demonstrated their commitment to the standards. For example, Vodafone, Verizon and China Mobile have all recently announced that they will be working together with other stakeholders in an initiative to discuss their visions for LTE.  In addition, TeliaSonera in Sweden announced that they will be signing a contract for commercial LTE with us earlier this month – this will be Ericsson’s first commercial deployment for LTE.

How long will it take for LTE to become the mainstream 4G standard?
The first generation of mobile telephony saw six different standards, and during the second generation there were four. Today, there are only two standards, HSPA and CDMA. In the future, there will be one mainstream standard – LTE – delivering a ‘killer experience’ with coverage and speed that will be available anywhere in the world.  But we have to remember that every generation so far has taken 10 years to evolve. We have already learned a lot when it comes to HSPA, and we cannot skip this generation just because LTE seems to be right around the corner