LIVE FROM GSMA MOBILE ASIA CONGRESS 2011: Christian Daigneault, CTO of Hong Kong operator CSL, said that its launch of Asia’s first LTE network has “exceeded our expectation,” while acknowledging that some challenges have had to be overcome. Speaking to the Show Daily in an exclusive interview ahead of an appearance at Mobile Asia Congress this week, Daigneault said the company had initially encountered problems with the supply of LTE devices to support its rollout.

The company had intended to make services commercially available shortly after the initial network launch in November 2010 but the lack of LTE devices on the market forced the company to delay commercial launch to consumers until August 2011. “We did not want to launch any device commercially until we were confident we could meet the demand,” Daigneault said.

The other major challenge was that the first LTE-enabled device the operator intended to launch did not pass service stability requirements, despite successful interoperability testing. Several software updates were needed before the company could launch the device commercially.

The handover process from LTE to 3G was also initially problematic as it caused an interruption to data transmission. However, the CSL CTO said this has now been resolved and is “running smoothly.”

CSL encountered other issues once the network was rolled out, one of the biggest of which was “ensuring that customers understand the real difference that would be experienced using the 4G LTE network,” Daigneault said.

The early adopter launch of LTE in May 2011 saw speeds of 20Mb/s, although 100MB/s had been advertised. This difference between advertised and actual speed led to customer dissatisfaction “even though this is significantly faster than what can be experienced on a 3G network.”

The company has since communicated a more accurate idea of the service customers can expect to receive, including how the new network can provide uninterrupted HD video streaming, teleconferencing and rapid video file downloads. “This kind of uninterrupted experience is not possible with 3G, especially for other networks which are starting to suffer from congestion,” Daigneault said.

Another issue that emerged once the service was up and running was that content servers sometimes struggle to keep up with the network speeds. YouTube HD video servers, for example, are slower than the speed of the LTE network, according to Daigneault. “When it comes to the internet, mobile operators are unable to control the full end to end experience… We are reviewing our end-to-end connectivity to the internet and to the content provider, in order to meet customer expectation,” he said.

CSL no longer offers 3G plans (its only broadband connection offering includes LTE/DC-HSPA+) and all of the company’s new customers are on the LTE network. Meanwhile its LTE prices are competitive with 3G services offered by competitors. “This, combined with availability of smartphones, tablets and Wi-Fi hotspots becoming available in Q1 2012, means we expect the demand for 4G LTE to continue to increase substantially,” Daigneault said.

He added that the quality of the operator network is “absolutely” a competitive differentiator. CSL has a low churn level amongst mobile broadband customers and is seeing “a high level” of customers signing up for its LTE service after their contracts with other networks have expired.