Most International Mobile Phone Carriers To Go To HSPA+, Then LTE

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The 4G Wars are largely an American phenomenon. While other countries have LTE (just TeliaSonera in Sweden and Finland), the ultra-competitive American mobile landscape has resulted in a landrush for 4G, starting with Sprint jumping in bed with WiMAX in order to beat the other carriers out of the gate. But, soon LTE will spread around the globe to other countries, and now we have a report from an analyst firm saying that most mobile carriers, maybe yours, will be deploying HSPA+ first, then LTE.

According to a survey of mobile operators done by Infonetics Research, 75% of mobile operators around the globe will implement HSPA+ first, then the new LTE networks. One reason for this could be that HSPA+ is a much closer technology to existing 3G technology. Some cell towers can even be upgraded from 3G to HSPA+ with a simple firmware update on the equipment. In fact, before T-Mobile started calling their HSPA+ network “4G”, many of us industry watchers called it “3.5G”. It can deliver impressive mobile speeds, though it doesn’t have the capacity of LTE and WiMAX.

Generally, it doesn’t seem like non-American carriers are in any sort of rush to deploy LTE. There isn’t even any rush to deploy LTE for voice traffic, with 47% of those surveyed saying they’ll wait three years or more to being moving their voice network traffic off of the conventional bands and onto LTE.

While 4G is just but a sparkle outside America, here it’s expanding at a breakneck pace. Verizon’ 4G LTE network covers most of America, while Sprint’s WiMAX network started first but has fallen behind. AT&T has just rolled out their first LTE devices for a very limited number of cities. And finally, T-Mobile US had previously announced that LTE was years off for them, and any sort of plans with them are probably on indefinite hold with the AT&T-T-Mobile acquisition pending.