Verizon Wireless has installed 23 new mobile sites and additional network capacity in over 279 cities across Georgia in 2010.

About 96% of the state’s population is covered by Verizon Wireless3G network and over 4.2 million Georgians are covered by its LTE network. The company’s ongoing network investment in Georgia totals more than US$ 1.8 billion since the company was formed in 2000.

Verizon Wireless has invested more than US$ 60 billion nationally US$ 5.7 billion on average every year to increase the coverage and capacity of its network to add new services.

Verizon Wireless has recently launched its LTE wireless services in 38 markets and 60 commercial airports across the US including Atlanta, Athens and Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Augusta, Georgia will be getting the LTE network later this year.

Wind mobile trials LTE Network (Canada)

Wind Mobile Canada has announced the trial of a live LTE network, and the introduction of High Definition Voice Calling (HD Voice) across its network.

HD Voice is a technology that provides improved audio quality and the reduction of background noise. The HD Voice service only works on selected handsets, although more are being released that support the feature.

According to Ken Campbell, Chief Executive Officer of WIND Mobile, they are very proud of their network quality and of the efforts of their people to perform ongoing and rigorous testing to maintain quality and advance innovation. The company’s ability to deliver HD Voice before any other carrier in North America and to test LTE is examples of the technologies WIND is uniquely positioned to offer as they continue to advance their network to the next evolution of mobile network technology.

The USA based start-up LTE network, LightSquared is facing regulatory glitches after several US government agencies cited concerns about significant interference concerns from the network’s radio spectrum allocation.

As per Lawrence Strickling, assistant secretary of communications and information in the Commerce Department, services as disparate as the GPS network and some maritime and aviation emergency communications could be affected by interference from LightSquared’s network.

Mass-market use of LightSquared’s airwaves would create a challenging interference environment that must be addressed. It is incumbent on the FCC to deal with the resulting interference issues before any interference occurs.

According to Julius Knapp, Chief of the agency’s Office of Engineering and Technology, the FCC is reviewing LightSquared’s request and will ensure that any approvals would not result in harmful interference to current licensed users. They remain committed to moving forward with an open and transparent process.

According to LightSquared, it will begin trials in Baltimore, Denver, Las Vegas and Phoenix early this year and has signed a US$7 billion contract with Nokia Siemens Networks to deploy a nationwide network. The company won’t sell direct to consumers, but plans to offer access to its network on a wholesale basis to the other networks.

Globacom Nigeria unveils LTE network

Nigeria’s second national telecoms operator Globacom has reportedly launched a Long Term Evolution (LTE) network.

Services will initially be available to corporate users in Lagos and other large cities for wireless backhaul, following on from an agreement signed with US vendor Ceragon Networks in September 2010 for the provision of high-capacity 4G/LTE-ready wireless backhaul solutions.

According to Globacom, it will launch last mile connectivity for the LTE network in the near future, as soon as 4G-enabled phones and modems are made available in Nigeria.

According to Globacom’s Chief Operating Official, Mohamed Jameel, LTE will further enhance more demanding applications like interactive TV, mobile video blogging, advanced games or professional services, enabling more Nigerians to be on top of their game and thereby ruling their world. For subscribers, LTE offers the key benefits of performance and capacity.

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NEC Corp has revealed details which enclose its support for NTT DoCoMo’s new LTE mobile network, branded ‘Xi’ that was launched commercially on 24 December 2010.

Working as a total systems provider, NEC stated that it has contributed communications infrastructure and mobile terminals for the new network, which is capable of delivering data communications services with a maximum speed of 75Mbps.

NEC has been a development and manufacturing vendor for NTT DoCoMo LTE wireless base stations, core network equipment and mobile terminals since 2006.

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Beginning this Sunday, the network will make faster mobile internet in the U.S. Verizon Wireless this week triggered the largest mobile phone network based on fourth-generation LTE technology in the world, which will cover the outset more than 110 million Americans.

The telephone company explained in a statement that the network LTE (Long Term Evolution) will be activated on Sunday 5 December to become the mobile phone network in the country’s fastest, will initially cover 38 metropolitan areas and more than 60 airports .

LTE is a standard for mobile phone networks to multiply tenfold the data access speed compared to third generation standards. Therefore, it is expected to assume LTE generalization of the real takeoff of the Internet through mobile devices.

Beginning Sunday, Verizon Wireless will operate the largest network of all time. Our initial launch of 4G LTE network provides access to faster mobile and advanced United States more than a third of Americans”, today announced its president, Dan Mead.

The head of the U.S. carrier said that by 2013 this network will be completed and all the coverage offered by the company through its network of third generation (3G).

To promote its use among laptop users, Verizon will offer pricing plans that include paying $ 50 a month for 5 gigabytes of data, or $ 80 for 10 gigs. Each additional gigabyte will be charged $ 10. To this must be added the modem, which the company will offer two models, both for $ 250 or $ 99 if you sign a subscription agreement for two years.

Currently there are no mobile phones in the U.S. market that can access this new technology, but Verizon expects the first reaching the market by mid next year.

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Verizon Wireless has unveiled its first TV commercial for its forthcoming launch of LTE services, now promised sometime next month. Lightning Fast, Lightning Strong, Verizon 4G LTE Rule the air on the most advanced 4G network in the world, is the message.

According to the company, the network will be available in 38 markets and over 60 major airports, covering approximately 110 million people, by the end of the year. The operator adds it is aggressively expanding to cover our entire existing nationwide 3G footprint with 4G LTE by the end of 2013.

Verizon is promising the speed up to 10x faster than 3G, which will enable the downloading of movies in minutes, photos in seconds, a song in 4 seconds, and the uploading of a 10MB PowerPoint presentation in less than 25 seconds.

Specific launch dates and pricing details are still not known.

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Kenya’s government claims that it will not be awarding LTE licenses to the mobile networks, but will instead be issuing a tender for a part state-owned company to build a national network which would be shared by the mobile networks.

According to Information Permanent Secretary Bitange Ndemo, the new system would address the scarcity of spectrum, bridge the rural urban digital divide and create a level playing ground for operators, who would pay a service fee to those who invest in the technology.

As per Ndemo, the country has nearly 19 operators lined up for this kind of frequency which can only accommodate three operators if we use the old model to allocate it.

However, as per the recent statements by Safaricom, it expects to start technical trials of a Huawei supplied LTE upgrade to its own network. The two companies signed a three-year strategic partnership under which Safaricom selected Huawei as its vendor of choice for the supply of its core network requirements, and roll out the LTE network at a cost of US$143 million.

Vodafone and Optimus have supported suggestions that the country’s phone networks could build a joint LTE network infrastructure.

According to Miguel Almeida, president of Optimus, the Government, regulator and eventually could even force the sharing of infrastructure [...] due to the very climate of recession they are experiencing.

Vodafone’s Ant³nio Coimbra has already stated that there should be a shared investment to ensure sustainability. Portugal Telecom’s Zeinal Bava however rejects this hypothesis.The network is not for sale and not available to be shared with anyone.

Zeinal argued that if the conditions for LTE are not good I doubt that the company complete as quickly as they would like to eventually do, referring also to the regulator needs to have the issue of spectrum and cost into consideration.

The regulator will launch the tender for LTE spectrum in the first quarter of next year, but has not yet defined how the spectrum will be divided or will cost to operators.

­Japan’s DoCoMo has announced that it expects to spend US$3.3 billion to deploy its LTE network to the country’s major cities over the next two years. The initial rollout will be in about 1,000 base stations in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya and will cost around US$400 million by the end of March 2011.

The network operator is planning to add an additional 4,000 base stations in the next fiscal year, starting in April 2011, at a cost of US$1.2 billion, increasing the coverage to 20% of the population, up from the initial 7% at launch.

The third phase will take the company until March 2013, when the company will add a further 15,000 base stations to reach around 40% of the population.

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