Telecom Lead @ Mobile World Congress 2013: Choi Jin-sung, SK Telecom’s EVP and head of ICT R&D Division, and Thomas Noren, Ericsson’s VP and head of Product Area Radio, have signed their MoU for advanced LTE-A technologies.
SK Telecom and Ericsson will develop and demonstrate LTE-A technologies including small cell-related technologies in order to secure technological leadership in the LTE-A space.
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Recently, Japanese telecom major NTT DoCoMo signed agreements with Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) and Panasonic under which the vendors will help deploy LTE-A infrastructure. NSN says that the LTE-A base stations it will install ensure capacity of 300Mbps and allow for cloud-based services. NSN and Panasonic have worked with DoCoMo previously, as part of the cellco’s LTE launch in 2010.
According to 4G Americas, the total number of 3GPP mobile subscriptions at 5.2 Billion, accounting for 90 percent of all mobile phone users.
LTE represents only 3.8 million of those subscriptions, or less than 1 percent, but these are still early days for the technology and great things are expected – as highlighted in the Evolution to LTE report from the Global mobile Suppliers Association, where LTE is described as the fastest developing mobile system technology ever, based on solid statistics on product announcements and on 248 operator commitments.
At MWC 2013, SK Telecom and Ericsson will demonstrate LTE-A Super Cell 1.0 that eliminates inter-cell boundaries and make multiple number of small cells/macro cells act as one cell by allocating identical cell IDs.
SK Telecom is planning to apply Super Cell 1.0 to its LTE-A network in the second half of this year and promote advancement of its LTE-A network in a flexible manner in accordance to the international standardization of core LTE-A technologies.
According to Informa Telecoms & Media, a UK-based research firm, the total number of small cells deployed around the world in 2012 stood at 6.5 million, and the figure is expected to reach 15 million by the end of 2013 and 91 million by the year 2016.
