Industry momentum behind the move to LTE technology continues, with research from the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA) claiming that 26 operators worldwide have so far committed to deployment. Moreover, the GSA claims that up to ten operators are expected to launch commercial LTE services in 2010, a timeframe that would be supported by the world’s largest handset vendor, Nokia. GigaOM yesterday cited comments from James Harper, senior manager of technology marketing at the Finnish vendor, who said that the company has committed to LTE as its preferred network for devices and plans to launch data-intensive devices for those networks in 2010.

Work on LTE is moving fast despite the global economic crisis; in December the 3GPP agreed on an initial set of specifications for the technology, to be included in the 3GPP’s new Release 8 set of standards. The majority of the world’s most high-profile mobile operators have already opted for LTE as their technology of choice for next-generation mobile communications. US operator Verizon announced its choice of radio access network vendors – Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson – at last month’s GSMA Mobile World Congress and plans to launch commercial services next year. Meanwhile, tier one operators such as NTT DoCoMo and China Mobile are also prepping deployment. Analyst firm Wireless Intelligence takes a slightly more tempered viewpoint, claiming in a recent report that “LTE is not likely to reach mass market anytime before 2012 when we expect to see the first big wave of commercial availability.”