LTE yet? when? who?

[mailbotx]

Trip to Spain and Morocco in late June early July and will bring my LTE capable new Ipad. After a few google searches, Barcelona appears to have some LTE up and running on O2. But that does not seem like a choice (Movistar, Orange, or Vodafone) for pre-paid data. Anybody know anything about upcoming LTE coverage?

[tux]

American LTE isn't compatible with European LTE
And, at the moment, no spanish operator offers LTE.

[inquisitor]

Originally Posted by tux

American LTE isn't compatible with European LTE

I may add that LTE is compatible but operates on different frequencies in Europe and the US like it is the case for 2G and 3G networks. However in contrast to the latter there are no devices available yet that would support American and European LTE frequencies.

Anyway you don't need LTE in Europe, where we have pretty performant 3G (UMTS) networks that deliver enough bandwidth for your iPad. Technically LTE is still immature and more of a marketing thing than a real advancement.
Martin Sauter recently wrote an interesting article on this topic: WirelessMoves: Why the US Needs LTE Smartphones in 2012 and Why They are Not Needed and Wanted in Europe

[tux]

Originally Posted by inquisitor

I may add that LTE is compatible but operates on different frequencies in Europe and the US like it is the case for 2G and 3G networks. However in contrast to the latter there are no devices available yet that would support American and European LTE frequencies.

Sorry, I meant iPad LTE frequencies.

US: 700MHz, 2100MHz
EU: 800MHz, 1800MHz, 2600MHz

[inquisitor]

I got what you tried to say. I just wanted to underline that American and European LTE in general is compatible and that one day there will surley be devices that support the different frequencies so transatlantic roaming will be possible.
Btw Apple is facing trouble in many countries for advertising the new iPad as "4G" despite it only works only on American LTE networks: Denmark, Sweden, UK, New Zealand also probing Apple’s “4G” marketing for the new iPad

[andy]

Originally Posted by inquisitor

I got what you tried to say. I just wanted to underline that American and European LTE in general is compatible and that one day there will surley be devices that support the different frequencies so transatlantic roaming will be possible.

It will be a question of producing devices with added frequencies, rather than phone manufacturers hoping for new allocations to help them.

TV in the UK is in the process of switching from analogue to digital - several million people on the London area in the next couple of weeks, and about 3/4 of the country so far - and afterwards 800 MHz upwards will become available for 4g.

But only TV channels 63 to 68 are being discontinued here, and ch 62 is centred at 802 MHz, so no prospect of seeing 700 to 800 MHz for phone use.

I don't know what situations exist in other countries, but I imagine things will eventually be similar across Europe.

[inquisitor]

Of course it's the device manufacturers who need to implement multi-band compatibility. Actually some devices like the Huawei E398u-15 already support multi-band LTE (800/1800/2600 MHz) but they support only the frequencies of the region they're designed for.

In Europe the 700-MHz band used for LTE in the US will remain in the domain of DVB-T.

Afaik all European countries will release or even have already released a chunk of the upper end of former UHF TV frequencies. Here in Germany the range from 790-862 MHz (channels 61-69) was auctioned in 2010 and T-Mobile and Vodafone have launched commercial operation already last year, while O2 will follow soon (eplus didn't win any 800MHz block but instead acquired additional 2100MHz blocks, where they now own 20 MHz of continuous spectrum).

In the UK the "digital dividend" spectrum will be smaller by a third (806-854 MHz), but afaik most EU countries will follow Germany's path.

Besides the 800 MHz band in Germany LTE is planned to be deployed also to 1800 MHz (T-Mobile rededicating GSM1800 blocks), 2100 MHz (probably eplus rededicating UMTS2100 blocks) and 2600 MHz (all operators).
In other European countries also the current GSM900 range will probably be reused for LTE, so there'll be at least five different bands used only in Europe.

Now if you include other regions that use completely different bands, it becomes clear that LTE results in an even worse fragmentation of frequencies than we've seen for UMTS.

This is an overview of proposed LTE frequencies worldwide:


A detailed overview with all the 26 FDD-blocks standardised so far can be found at LTE frequency band

Since MIMO and thus the implementation of at least two antennas for each frequency band is obligatory for LTE building devices with global compatibility will be quite a challenge for manufacturers.

[inquisitor]

Speaking of the devil Option today announced a quad-band LTE modem: Option Shows Off Quad-Band LTE Modem

However it still lacks the 2100 MHz band and so doesn't cover all potential European LTE frequencies, despite I haven't heard of a live network on this particular frequency.

[tux]

Originally Posted by andy

It will be a question of producing devices with added frequencies, rather than phone manufacturers hoping for new allocations to help them.

TV in the UK is in the process of switching from analogue to digital - several million people on the London area in the next couple of weeks, and about 3/4 of the country so far - and afterwards 800 MHz upwards will become available for 4g.

But only TV channels 63 to 68 are being discontinued here, and ch 62 is centred at 802 MHz, so no prospect of seeing 700 to 800 MHz for phone use.

I don't know what situations exist in other countries, but I imagine things will eventually be similar across Europe.

In Italy the situation is far more complicated, as all the channels from 21-60 (and 61-69 in most regions, with no other frequencies available) are assigned to TV broadcasters. For example, in Milan this is the situation: OTG TV
As you can see, the channels are all assigned to TV broadcasters.

TVs broadcasting on channels 61-69 must free these frequencies by 31/12/2012, and will receive only a compensation, not other frequencies.

And there is a really high risk of interferences between LTE and DTT due to the occupation of all the frequencies.

Yes, italian DTT is like a jungle, and it will be more complex, with stupid associations who represent the 600-something local TVs making recourses over recourses to stop italian digital switch-off and threatening not to free 61-69 channels... seems like we'll never have 800MHz LTE.

[inquisitor]

Thanks tux. Interesting. I guess the (expensive) solution would be to switch from DVB-T to DVB-T2 which increases capacity by 30-50%. So DVB-T2 could offset the loss of the upper UHF channels.

@andy
I think it would be good to cut off the last postings and move them to a separate "LTE frequency bands"-thread, wouldn't it?