Applying 3G lessons to LTE

The first long-term evolution networks have officially gone live overseas, and the first large-scale LTE deployments are set to launch this year in the U.S. and Japan. When LTE was still a technology targeted for 2013 or 2014, its named seemed apt, but today LTE is right around the corner.

Or is it? One thing we've learned (or should have learned) from the various generational deployments is the year a wireless technology officially emerges isn't necessarily the year we see that technology's benefits. We were promised high-speed data networks in 2000, only to see UMTS and CDMA 1X used primarily as voice networks for years until the advent of high-speed packet access and EV-DO networks. Handsets substantially lagged new networks and network upgrades in the early years of 3G, and it took several years for operators to figure out their data business models. (You can argue they're still figuring them out.)

Has the industry learned its lessons from 3G? Is the ecosystem more developed for LTE, and are we much better prepared for 4G than we were for 3G? This is the central question we'll be exploring in the February issue of Connected Planet: The networks are ready, but are the other pieces falling into place?

I'm still doing the interviews for the piece, but some themes are starting to emerge. Unlike in 3G, carriers have some pretty clear ideas what kind of applications and devices they want to see on the 4G network — largely they resemble the smartphones and broadband modems already taxing 3G networks. The gobs of traffic emerging from devices like the iPhone have an ideal home on the LTE network, but when it comes to new services the question is a bit muddier. LTE has the bandwidth to support high-bandwidth video, making video-on-demand, videoconferencing and live streaming the “new data” of 4G. The question is whether the industry has a clear plan to offer and monetize these new types of applications from the get-go. Or will the industry spend the next few years using the 4G network for 3G services, while we figure out what to do with all of that bandwidth.

What's your take? Feel free to comment below.

E-mail me at kevin.fitchard@penton.com.