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Early UK launch for LTE 1800?

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May 26, 2011 by Mike Newlands

The recent announcement that Everything Everywhere (EE) has signed a four-year network upgrade deal with Chinese vendor Huawei is another indication UK’s largest operator may be preparing the way for an early launch of LTE in the 1800 MHz band.

Huawei

With the 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz bands, which have been earmarked for LTE in most of Europe and beyond, not available for use in the UK until probably late 2012 commercial services in these bands are unlikely before well into 2013.

However operators around the world have been trialling LTE in the 1800 MHz band, and there have been early LTE 1800 commercial launches in Poland, Hong Kong and Lithuania. Australian incumbent Telstra has also announced it will launch LTE 1800 in cities later this year to take the strain off its HSPA+ network.

Common to many of the trials and launches to date has been the main vendor involved in them, Huawei, and its FlexiRAN software defined radio (SDR) architecture which supports a number of standards and bands, including HSPA at 2.1 GHz and LTE at 1800 MHz, and allows seamless handover between them.

A growing concensus

Another hint that something might be afoot comes in the form of an announcement from EE’s parents, Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom that they have joined together with TeliaSonera to nominate 1800 MHz as their frequency of choice for rolling out LTE networks. Speaking at the LTE World Summit, executives from the telcos called on vendors to develop devices for the band.

UK Telecoms regulator Ofcom recently released a report showing current-generation LTE was more than 3.3 times as spectrally efficient as 3G networks (with this to increase to 5.5 times with the advent of LTE Advanced), giving another good reason to refarm 1800 MHz spectrum for LTE data traffic while shifting voice to 3G at 2.1GHz.

The EC is working on making the band available for LTE, WiMAX and 3G in the EU and the British government has promised to alter the law here accordingly later in the year.

Meanwhile, Everything Everywhere is sitting on most of the UK’s 1800 MHz spectrum, 2 x 60 MHz in all, although it will have to divest itself of a 2 x 15 MHz chunk of this before the auction of “official” 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz LTE spectrum next year.

So Everything Everywhere has its parents blessing for LTE1800:
  • it has the most savvy LTE 1800 vendor in the world upgrading its existing networks
  • unlike its rivals it has plenty of 1800 MHz spectrum
  • the new legislation will give it the opportunity to get a jump on the other telcos
  • and it makes sound economic sense

Although Kip Meek (now the EE in-house policy wonk) might profess to not having even considered it , don’t be surprised if we see an announcement followed by a rapid launch of LTE1800 in major urban areas before the end of the year.•

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