MTN LTE vendor trial underway

Long Term Evolution (LTE) is widely seen as the wireless standard which will dominate mobile broadband over the next few years. The Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) announced in January 2011 that 180 operators in 70 countries are already investing in LTE networks.

LTE is a forerunner to the true 4G technologies – LTE Advanced and Mobile WiMax; both of which fall under the ITU’s IMT Advanced standard. LTE technologies make possible cellular network peak downlink data rates of well above 100 Mbps, uplink speeds in excess of 50 Mbps and RAN round-trip times of less than 10ms.

In June 2010 Vodacom demonstrated their live LTE network and achieved download speeds of around 70Mbps on this network, with ping times as low as 10ms. Only three months later Vodacom increased the peak speed to 125Mbps in another live demonstration.

All of the local cellular operators are keen to roll out LTE networks, but ICASA’s slow progress on handing out 2.6GHz spectrum (which is particularly suitable for new LTE deployments) is holding them back. The operators are however doing their ground work in preparation for LTE, with live network trials already under way.

In this regard MTN is currently running an LTE project in which vendors are constructing building trial LTE networks in Gauteng. MTN were unable to disclose which vendors are part of this trial.

MTN South Africa CTO Kanagaratnam Lambotharan said that MTN is currently using the 1,800 MHz band for the trial as the 2,600 MHz spectrum is yet to be allocated.

Lambotharan further said that while he cannot currently comment on time frames related to this trial, they are planning commercial LTE services in future.

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