The Board of the GSMA – which includes 23 operator representatives and 12 of the world’s largest operator groups – threw its weight behind LTE (Long-Term Evolution) as the evolutionary path for the GSM family of technologies during its meeting on the Sunday prior to the event. The GSMA also signalled its intent to actively embrace other mobile players developing LTE technology and will start working with the NGMN (Next Generation Mobile Networks) initiative.
“As demand for mobile broadband grows ever stronger, LTE offers higher speed and greater capacity once spectrum becomes available,” Telefonica O2 Europe’s CTO Dave Williams told the Show Daily. “LTE builds on the success of HSPA and ensures the GSM community will stay ahead of the demand curve.” Meanwhile, Matthias Reiss, Head of LTE Radio at Nokia Siemens Networks, told the Daily that commercial deployments of the technology are expected in the 2010 timeframe, with trial systems deployed earlier.