EU invests $25M to fund next generation of LTE

The European Union will invest $25 million to fund research for LTE-Advanced next-generation technology, the second phase of LTE technology. It appears the EU has visions of leapfrogging the first generation of LTE--given the fact that Europe is expected to lag behind the U.S. and Asia in LTE deployments--to give Europe a leg up in the second round of LTE deployments.

The EU in September will provide more details on how the money will be used and what projects will be funded. Various LTE-A projects are expected to begin in January 2010.

LTE-A is supposed to have download speeds of up to 1 Gbps, a notable improvement to the first version of LTE that is to support downloads speeds up to 100 Mbps, according to the EU.

In the U.S., Verizon Wireless is aggressively deploying the first version of LTE. The carrier last week completed its first successful LTE data call in Boston using the 3GPP Release 8 standard for the technology, following a similar successful test in Seattle. According to the Associated Press, Verizon said the results of the trial indicate LTE will supply average download speeds of 7 to 12 Mbps.

For more:
- check out PC World [1]

Related articles:
Nokia Siemens tests LTE-Advanced technology [2]
Vodafone: No LTE in Europe [3] before 2012
Verizon Wireless announces LTE data calls in two markets [4]