KDDI taps Motorola, NEC for LTE

Japanese operator KDDI has chosen Motorola and NEC to build its Long Term Evolution (LTE) network. The operator is aiming at a commercial launch of the technology in 2012. A series of trials will commence in mid-2010.

Motorola and NEC will both supply base stations to KDDI as well as backhaul, network management tools, video platform and self organizing/optimizing network (SON) technology and professional services. Motorola has been pushing the SON story hard.

The operator--which faces an aggressive market in Japan and competes with NTT DoCoMo, which wants to roll out LTE as fast as possible--plans to roll out the network in both the 1.5 GHz and 800 MHz bands. It's goal is to provide national mobile broadband coverage to 96.5 percent of the country by the end of 2014.

KDDI also is a major investor in Japanese mobile WiMAX operator UQ Communications, which recently rolled out service and has an aggressive strategy to cover most of Japan by the end of 2012. NEC is a vendor for that network.

For more:
- see telecoms.com [1]
- check out this release [2]

Related articles:
Intel pushes mobile WiMAX along in Japan [3]
Mobile WiMAX comes to Japan [4]
Motorola clarifies position [5] on WiMAX, LTE R&D