And finally, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has frozen the specifications for LTE, with final formal ratification expected in March 2009.
It’s all very good news for carriers wanting to go the LTE route: The time to market advantage that WiMAX is enjoying (paging Sprint and Clearwire) and increasing data uptake rates are pressuring service providers to move to LTE faster than expected; Verizon Wireless, for example, announced last week that it has accelerated its plans for LTE rollouts, aiming for 2009. There was some concern that the operator would have to rely on non-standard equipment, upgrading to the certified iteration at a later date.
It’s also obviously good news for gear-makers, who can now build to the spec with a reasonable expectation that what is now published is the final iteration, so as to avail themselves of a commercial market that’s coming to fruition quicker than expected.
