TeliaSonera launches world's first LTE network, awaits phones eagerly
By Vlad Savov 
posted December 14th 2009 7:14AM
posted December 14th 2009 7:14AM
posted December 14th 2009 7:14AM
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"world's first commercial 4G network"? sprint might have something to say about that.
@Junyor Mynt I guess it depends on your definition of "4G" but to be able to successfully market something as 4G it has to be faster than 3G and WiMax is slower than HSDPA (Sprint WiMax: 12 Mbit, HSDPA here in Sweden: 21 MBit)
@kalleboo Yeah...exactly. Telia certainly has this figured out which is why 4G launched here with 50 Mbit and according to http://www.telia4g.se/, 80 Mbit is already in the works. Otherwise there'd be no reason for people to let their 21 Mbit modems start collecting dust.
@Junyor Mynt
The article states the "first commercial LTE network"
@Junyor Mynt
this is in no way the first 4G network launched. because Russia has had 4G for some time now. They also got the 4G phone from HTC
http://www.htc.com/www/product/max4g/overview.html
but i think im missing something here.
@IvanP91
That's WiMax, not LTE.
@kalleboo Call me crazy but I thought 4g was based on OFDM standards.. Which Wi-max is.. The first LTE actual speeds will still be slower than HSPDA theoretical speeds for a short time as well.. The G means generation.. And its pretty much a fact that CDMA is the 3rd Generation with EVDO and HSPDA being based on CDMA... OFDM is a far more advanced and superior way to transmit mobile data thats why its known as 4G or Fourth Generation.. It doesnt technically have to be faster than 3G while its still in its infancy..
"This rollout is in fact slightly ahead of schedule"
Only in Scandinavia... (Y)
@DestrictoEnse
haha, yeah in the US we are not even sure what those series of words mean grouped into the same sentence.
the future is near!
@saspr No, the network actually went live today and you can buy a modem from a store, so, the future is in fact here.
@mroach i meant for cellphone service, but okay... the future is here!
@saspr Oh, meh. I guess I don't see the point right now when you can get 21 Mbit in phones and most probably can't even handle speeds faster than that unless maybe they were in tether mode or doing a large file download directly to internal memory.
@mroach
"I dont see the point"-posts suck. Better speed? Of course there is a point and what are you doing on engadget
Considering all new-construction T-Mobile and AT&T towers are EDGE-based, that only 60% of the inhabited land area of the US is covered by EDGE, and only 1% is covered by 3G, and the fact you can't drive coast to coast or north-south on any Interstate or federal highway and maintain coverage the entire way, it will be many many years before any meaningful LTE coverage is worth bothering about. And by that time the cellphone companies will be crowing about 8G "coming soon". The cellphone companies have NEVER completed building even ONE generation of coverage for the entire country and never will. They sit on licenses for market areas that have cities and towns in them that they have no plans of building out, and no other carrier is allowed to build anything because of that license. The FCC should mandate that these areas be either built within a year or they forfeit the license. This has been going on since 1989, long enough!
Here in Russia we have 4G for like a year. Phones, usb-sticks, mofi, notebooks. 4-8 mps is a normal speed in city.
@kozel thats not 4g.
Well you don't have the US ruined economy to deal with, and all the US-style corruption. :)
@jonaseriksson wimax is not 4g?
@kozel No, read what @kalleboo wrote
@unyari wimax is stated everywhere is a 4g. Next year our network will be able to deliver 100 mbs
@kozel there is a evolution of wimax that could be considered 4g once released. but just plain ordinary wimax is nothing special, and definitely not 4g.
@jonaseriksson Wimax is based on the same fundamentals as LTE... No one has 100mbps LTE yet so is LTE 3g too..
Anyone else find it strange that a Swedish-Finnish telecom company is using neither Nokia nor Sony Ericsson equipment for their brand new network?
@dhomas It's because only Samsung have only actually gotten modems into production lol.
The Stockholm network is powered by Ericsson equipment tho
@dhomas they're using ericsson equipment :)
@dhomas
I'm guessing they let companies bid for contracts the standard way. Why limit yourself because of nationalism?
@kalleboo I was pretty sure it had to be Ericsson on the back-end, but just found it odd that Samsung was first to market with an actual device...
@dhomas Fun fact: Although free on contract, the LTE modem is worth 3500kr, which is _470_ dollars.
@jonremedy Yah, outsourcing is fantastic!
@kopmis I would be interested to verify the price tag of 3500 SEK. Would you mind contacting me at mats.lewan(at)nyteknik.se ?
Yeah 100mbps what is the actual average speed download and upload. Well at least in Australia we've had our NextG network for quite some time. We're on 21mbps/dl and 5.6mbps/ul.
@Federaly Same as in the rest of the world. It's the US that's always lagging behind in the cellphone industry.
Did they edit the title of the article? or is everyone's reading comprehension zero? All the networks you are naming off to my knowledge are WiMax, this article says it's the first LTE network. (as for speed, LTE is in fact faster than WiMax, which is why some people don't consider WiMax 4g, but those are other issues.)
I'm more curious what the latency and jitter are like with an LTE connection, because if they are even remotely comparable Time Warner Cable is in for some hurtin when Verizon launches it's LTE in the US, especially here in Austin, with our amazing 10mpbs (with glorious traffic shaping)
@Amnesia87 Actually they're probably reading the press releases which bill this as the world's first 4G network, and I agree with those claims. Wimax really hasn't gone anywhere, isn't going to go anywhere, and it's slower than offered 3G services. As has been said, Wimax tops out at 10 or 12 Mbit where as HSDPA you get 21 Mbit service.
Since G stands for generation, you could argue Wimax is the 4th Generation since it came after whatever horrible services (EVDO, CDMA?) it's meant to replace; it's just worse than the 3rd Generation in every way and has little to no global potential.
@mroach Or you could follow the ITU's definition; we are not going to see 4G until the IMT-Advanced proposals (3GPP Rel 10, 802.16m) come back, probably in October of next year. I don't see the point of using 4G as a marketing term, because not only is it technically incorrect, but I don't give a shit what generation my phone is supposed to be, I just want it to be fast. Neither LTE nor today's WiMAX are 4G.
Completely agreed about WiMAX being basically dead in the water. Outside of developing countries I doubt it's going to see a very substantial market share.
@mroach Jus so ya kno HSPDA is CDMA....
Spot light. iPhone, Action
this is the switch that turns on iPhone 4g :)
The cost for this in Sweden is 84 USD per month add a limit to that cost of 30GB and this is not that sexy anymore.
@JENSER
it will change. they will change it from 30gb to alot more.
Well It looks like it's going to be very cheap to use these modems in Stockholm, atleast until july 2010, as I saw on a swedish mobile phone site (www.mobil.se). according to them the price would be 4SEK a month in USD it's about 50cents a month. but the real bummer here is that they are only in possesion of selling 1000 pieces of these modems divided in Oslo and in Stockholm
"The US might not be too far behind"
The US is ALWAYS far behind...wake up engadget! Lol.
@surgex YES. couldn't agree more. But don't worry to compensate for really crappy service we do pay really high prices!
(yea, if you find sarcasm - you're entitled to keep it)
Come on. Why Sweden always gets all the good stuff before Finns... :(
@Tombio because we're twice as awesome! :D
But why only Sweden and Norway? Telia operates in Denmark too.
Hate living in the bad country of Scandinavia.
@pr3w Probably because Telia (in Sweden) / Netcom (in Norway) have better return-on-investment analysis.
Telia and Netcom have huge shares of the market in Sweden and Norway. How's Telia doing in Denmark?
Does Telia even have a LTE license in Denmark?
whats the latency like on LTE?...
A 4G cellular system must have target peak data rates of up to approximately 100 Mbit/s for high mobility such as mobile access and up to approximately 1 Gbit/s for low mobility such as nomadic/local wireless access, according to the ITU requirements. At this time, all carriers that claims 4G technology are technically inaccurate. For WiMAX, it means it will need to be compliant to IEEE 802.16m specification. For LTE, it means it will need to be compliant to 3GPP Release 9 specification. Both specifications have been submitted as proposal to be accepted as the standardfor the ITU IMT-Advanced specification but this work is currently in progress. So, no one has commercial 4G deployed at this time (regardless of the marketing spin).
A quick testing in Stockholm gave 43Mbit DL and 7Mbit UL. If you're interested in that.