TeliaSonera hands out industry's first commercial LTE contracts

TeliaSonera doled out the industry's first commercial LTE contracts to Ericsson and Huawei. The Scandinavian operator plans to roll out LTE service in Sweden and Norway. Ericsson said it has already begun the rollout in Stockholm, Sweden, and is set for commercial launch in 2010. Chinese vendor Huawei is deploying the LTE network in Oslo, Norway.

More than 18 operators worldwide have announced LTE deployment plans, with most looking at a 2011 to 2012 timeframe for rollout. Verizon Wireless has announced acceleration of its LTE plans, bringing the launch forward from 2010 to the end of 2009, while NTT DoCoMo is expected to launch LTE in 2009 as well.

The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has completed the majority of specifications for standardization of LTE, meaning the full Release 8 standard is on track for completion by March.

For more:
- see Telecoms.com [1]

Related articles:
LTE standardization almost complete [2]
T-Mobile International wants LTE [3] fast