LTE In-depth information

LTE – key facts

LTE, or Long Term Evolution, is the global standard for the fourth generation of mobile networks (4G) supported by all major players in the industry. LTE offers the capacity and the speed to handle a rapid increase in data traffic. According to latest market data traffic report, there will be 5 billion mobile broadband subscriptions in 2017. 50% of the worlds population will have LTE coverage 2017.

Currently 145 LTE operators has launched commercial services. 330 operators have publicly committed to the technology across 104 different countries. Today 455 million people have access to commercial LTE networks.¹

¹ Data from GSA Jan 11nd, 2013 and Ericsson internal

Performance and capacity – One of the requirements of LTE is to provide downlink peak rates of at least 100Mbps. The technology allows for speeds more than 300Mbps and Ericsson has already demonstrated the next step of LTE at the MWC 2010 with theoretical peak rates up to 1.2Gbps.

Simplicity – LTE supports flexible carrier bandwidths, from 1.4MHz up to 20MHz. LTE also supports frequency division duplexing (FDD) and time division duplexing (TDD).

Latency – The user plane latency achieved in LTE is less than in existing 3G technologies providing a direct service advantage for highly immersive and interactive application environments, such as multiplayer gaming and rich multimedia communications.

Wide range of terminals – In addition to LTE dongles and mobile phones, many computer and consumer electronic devices, such as notebooks, ultra-portables, gaming devices and cameras, will incorporate embedded LTE modules.

LTE – background

The fast evolution of mobile communication over the last decades plays a central role in the daily life of practically every person on Earth. It is a fundamental part to the global economy and will play an even more vital part for most aspects of global progress in the decades to come.

With mobile broadband the pace and possibilities in communication has picked up. Just consider:

• It took 100 years to build 1 billion fixed phone lines...
• …but only 20 years to add 5 billion mobile subscribers.
• Mobile data surpassed voice on a global basis during December 2009.
• The first mobile application was launched in 2008. Downloads are forecasted to reach 17.7 billion downloads this year, a 117 percent increase from an estimated 8.2 billion in 2010.
• An increased global broadband penetration of 10 percent increases the yearly GDP growth with about 1 percent – or around USD 800 billion annually, adding millions of jobs around the world.
• Of the estimated close to 5 billion people who will have mobile broadband by 2017, about 95% will be served by HSPA, CDMA and LTE networks.

The introduction of LTE will be an evolutionary step, rather than revolutionary, as large parts of existing infrastructure is re-used providing a future-proof technology path for flexible migration of services between 2G, 3G and 4G mobile technologies.

Even though 3G will continue to do a perfectly good job in delivering broadband to billions of mobile users for many years to come, LTE will sooner or later be essential in order to meet customer expectations and demand for speed and capacity enabling more data demanding and latency sensitive applications such as interactive TV, mobile video blogging, advanced games and professional services.

LTE will be a main driver for innovation in the years to come, enabling the next Google, Facebook or iPhone and opening doors to possibilities in a number of new areas like utilities transport, health, media to name a few.

Ericsson and LTE

Ericsson is the world’s leading provider of technology and services to telecom operators. Ericsson is the leader in 2G, 3G and 4G mobile technologies, and provides support for networks with over 2 billion subscribers and has the leading position in managed services.

• LTE commercial networks worldwide currently cover 455 million people, of which 305 million people are covered by LTE networks delivered by Ericsson.
• An important key to the quick deployment potential of commercial LTE networks is Ericsson’s Self Organizing Networks (SON) solution, offering customers standardized "plug and play" networks with a high degree of automation saving time and improving performance.
• Ericsson has signed LTE contracts with nine of the top ten ranked operators by global revenue 2012. A number of these contracts include radio access, evolved packet core and mobile backhaul.
• Ericsson was placed as a leader in LTE Network Infrastructure in 2012 by Gartner, Inc., the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company. The leaders quadrant was presented in the Magic Quadrant report for LTE Network Infrastructure, July 2012.*
• Ericsson is the undisputed leader in development and standardization of LTE and offers end-to-end networks with superior performance when it comes to stability, throughput, and latency – the most important key factors for end-users of LTE.
• Ericsson has had the highest impact on the released LTE specification and expects to hold 25 percent of all essential patents in LTE.
• Ericsson is the global leader in telecom services and has won the world’s first Managed Services deal for LTE.
• Ericsson's core network solutions include industry-leading soft switches, IP infrastructure for edge and core routing (Ericsson's Smart Service Routers), IP-based Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and gateways. GSM and WCDMA/HSPA share a common core network. Therefore operators' previous investments are preserved as they migrate from voice-centric to multimedia networks. Ericsson's switching products have industry-leading scalability and capacity.
• Ericsson’s MINI-LINK microwave system is one of the world’s most widely deployed mobile backhaul solutions. Transport networks (e.g. MINI-LINK, metro optical networks) are essential elements of our end-to-end solutions.

* The Magic Quadrant graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research note and should be evaluated in the context of the entire report. The Gartner report is available upon request from Verdasys.The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted 2012 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Ericsson LTE/EPC contracts

More than 130 networks on 6 continents of which more than 60 have gone live commercially

List of operators that have selected Ericsson’s LTE/EPC offer:*

* List shows the largest operators that have selected LTE, some smaller ones are not shown here (March 2012).

List of operators that have selected Ericsson Managed Services for LTE:

Meet the Mobile Natives

"We lived on farms, we lived in cities, and now we’re going to live on the Internet!"

From the movie "The Social Network"

The development in voice communication has moved from one fixed phone per household to a highly personal communication device. Internet broadband is moving in the same direction with individual mobile cloud based 24/7 connectivity in smartphones, tablets and laptops. The generations growing up today will be "Mobile Natives" shaping our future, but already today we see that Internet 24/7 is a pre-requisite and not an option as it has become a necessity for life.

Get to know the Mobile Natives

"My iPhone is my baby. I got it almost two years ago and I don’t remember what life was like without it!"

Ben, 28, NYC

"I'm left-handed, so I use my left hand for everything, but the iPhone is like my right-hand. It's like an assistant to me. It assists me in nearly like everything, how to get to the places I need to go, what am I going to eat around there and what I should wear before I go there according to the weather."

Alyssa, 29, San Francisco

"My grandfather got a very, very old phone. You can’t even watch TV on it."

Vera, 5, Stockholm

She is woken by the crack of dawn by the app tracking her sleep patterns and gently sounds the alarm in the lightest sleep phase. She checks in of Facebook, before she switches to the local news Twitter and continues to the live-streamed traffic update.

When brushing her teeth to the new playlist sent to her by friend Eiko in Tokyo, who calls in to check about how she liked the music:

- Great haircut by the way, have a nice night out!

Her calendar tells her it’s time to get moving and after making preliminary plans for the evening – "let’s stay connected, guys" – she’s on her way. Going new places again, but that’s no problem. Her smartphone find the way and takes her through the day. Her own personnel window to the world. If she forgets it – does she go back and fetch it?

No, never ever. Forgetting is just not an option. Meet the mobile native.

Mobile Native background

From the stone tools of ancient time to the digital age, technology has shaped and been shaped by humanity. Some inventions – like the plough – put their mark on everyday for thousands of years. Lately pace has picked up.

The fast evolution of mobile communication over the last decades plays a central role in the daily life of practically every person on earth. It is a fundamental driver in the global economy and will play an even more vital part for most aspects of global progress in the decades to come. And it has only just begun.

The development in voice communication has moved from one fixed phone per household to a highly personal communication device. And Internet is moving in the same direction with mobile, individual cloud based 24/7 connectivity.

The number of mobile broadband will pass one billion subscriptions this year. With close to 5 billion connections in 2016, mobile broadband will bring the Internet further than ever before creating a truly globally networked society and a new generation of mobile natives.

Features of the Mobile Natives:

• Almost 2 hours per day is spent accessing the Internet from smartphones. The age group 15-24 years spends about twice as much time using smartphone Internet as the age group 45+.
• The smartphone is always kept close at hand and users tend to carry it with them whenever they move around, even at home. The smartphone represents a vital part of the personal identity from all areas of life and is literally an extension of the body.
• The smartphone offers an individually designed selection of Internet content, which reflects the identity, and lifestyle of the user.
• People's Mobile Broadband usage and behaviors are shifting. More than ever, people are viewing broadband access as a 24/7 necessity, rather than "nice-to-have". They see it as part of daily life – moving far beyond basic connectivity. Before people decided when to get online. Nowadays, they decide when to get offline.
• Losing a regular mobile phone means losing the address book, which is quite a hassle. Losing the laptop or the smartphone could mean losing an identity on a social network or a large amount of personal data, which is not recoverable.
• Of the estimated 5 billion people who will have broadband by 2016, about 85 percent will be mobile broadband subscribers.

FAQ

What is LTE?

LTE, or Long Term Evolution, is the global standard for the fourth generation of mobile networks (4G) supported by all major players in the industry. LTE offers the capacity and the speed to handle a rapid increase in data traffic with close to 5 billion mobile broadband subscriptions in 2016.

What are the advantages with LTE for users?

LTE gives a superior user experience when it comes to stability, throughput, and latency. The increased capacity will bring new and better services to users.

What are the advantages with LTE for operators?

LTE offers existing and greenfield operators the advantage of a future proof network delivering capacity, throughput and user experience creating new business opportunities and revenues. LTE offers low long-term capital and operational costs. Networks deployed today can be used for all generations of communication; 2G, 3G and 4G.

How fast is LTE?

Today’s LTE networks are able to provide speeds up to 100Mbps. However user experience may vary depending on location and present network load. The technology allows for speeds more than 300Mbps and Ericsson has already demonstrated the next step of LTE at the MWC 2010 with speeds up to 1.2Gbps. Live measurements in north of Stockholm in June 2011 gave speeds above 1Gbps.

When will I be able to use LTE?

This depends on where you live. For example in the North America and Scandinavia, LTE is already available. Today 285 million people have LTE coverage (Nov 2011) and there are more than a 200 LTE-ready devices (smartphones, tablets, modems) available this year.

So far there have been 49 commercial LTE deployments (GSA Jan 2012). In total, 154 operators in 60 countries have publicly committed to the technology (2010).

So 2011 was the year when LTE took off for real and 2012 will be the year of volume expansion

Will LTE make previous standards like HSPA (3G) obsolete?

No, in many markets HSPA and EDGE will continue to do a perfectly good job in delivering broadband to billions of mobile users for many years to come.

The introduction of LTE will be an evolutionary step, rather than revolutionary, as large parts of existing infrastructure is re-used providing a future-proof technology path for flexible migration of services between 2G, 3G and 4G mobile technologies. But in order to meet customer expectations and demands for capacity and speed tomorrow, all major players need to put an LTE strategy in place today.

What is Ericsson’s position in LTE?

Ericsson has supplied the large majority of the commercial LTE networks already deployed and has signed contracts with seven of the top eight operators, ranked by global revenue 2010.

Ericsson is the undisputed leader in development of LTE and offers networks with superior performance when it comes to stability, throughput, and latency – the most important key factors for end-users of LTE. Ericsson offers LTE in both technology tracks; LTE FDD and TD-LTE and collaborates with all leading players in the industry to secure the eco system.

Ericsson has had the highest impact on the released LTE specification and expects to hold 25 percent of all essential patents in LTE.

There are many claims about patents, what are the facts?

Ericsson has a tradition of making conservative predictions and has tried to keep a realistic approach in patent issues.

In the early stages of LTE rollout many exaggerated claims have been made about number of essential patent rights.

The main sources of error are:

• The majority of patents counted are pending and not approved.
• Many patents listed in databases are only distantly related to LTE, and hence not essential

Today Ericsson has a total of 30 000 granted patents, and is the number one holder of GSM/GPRS/EDGE, WCDMA/HSPA, and LTE essential patents.

Ericsson has over 90 patent license agreements generating significant revenue, which is re-invested in the eco system. New (and renewed) patent licensing agreements will also cover LTE.

What will happen with voice calls over LTE?

Unlike previous generations of mobile networks, LTE is completely IP-based and supports only data transfers in its basic form. However most operators are likely to offer their customers solutions for voice services.

Operators will benefit from an early voice over LTE strategy supporting their existing and future services.

In our view GSMA VoLTE, a solution supported by the governing body of GSM telecommunications systems, offers the best opportunity for operators to evolve their services toward full multimedia while protecting and expanding their business.

For LTE to support voice and messaging, an IP-based solution is required that will offer the same interoperable and seamless experience that 2G and 3G wireless technologies offer today. IMS (IP multimedia subsystem) can achieve this, and supports all voice call service features such as call waiting, call hold and call barring, and is highly scalable to serve very large subscriber bases. IMS also provides mobile operators with the ability to offer services that can integrate voice calls with enhanced, rich features such as presence, instant messaging and video content, delivered in an interoperable and multi-operator environment.