LG calls
LTE technology "the leading candidate to become the fourth generation mobile phone technology standard," and says its R&D staff, numbering more than 250 employees, has been working on it for the past three years. Spearheaded by the
3GPP (third generation partnership project) industry group, LTE is supported by companies including AT&T, Qualcomm, Verizon, and Vodafone.
Yet, to be standardized fully, LTE faces a formidable rival in the form of
WiMAX -- which has already made it into a Windows Mobile phone, HTC's
MAX 4G. Meanwhile, LG says LTE cellphones are likely to reach the market by 2010.
Samples of LG's 13 x 13mm LTE modem chip were shown off earlier todayIn a demonstration of the LTE technology, staged earlier today at LG's Mobile Communication Technology Research Lab in Anyang, Korea, a "test terminal running Windows Mobile" achieved wireless download speeds of 60Mbps and upload speeds of 20MBps, LG claims. Ultimately, LTE aims to provide 100Mbps downloads, more than twelve times the 7.2Mbps speed of HSDPA (high speed downlink packet access).
LG says its new, unnamed LTE chip measures 13 x 13mm, and is "perfectly suited to the next generation of slim-yet-powerful handsets." In addition to being offered in Windows Mobile phones, the chip will form the basis of LTE data cards for netbooks, MIDs, and other portable computers, the company added.
Quoting the market research company Strategy Analytics, LE says the global LTE handset market will double from 70 million units in 2012 to 150 million units by 2013. Adding that "most of the major operators" are preparing LTE networks, LG says 85 percent of WCDMA (wideband code division multiple access) carriers will be able to upgrade their networks to LTE with far less cost than building a new network based on a different technology.
Dr. Woo Hyun Paik, CTO of LG Electronics, "Now that LG has developed and tested the first 4G handset modem, a commercially viable LTE handset is on the horizon. This latest breakthrough gives us a strong technology advantage."
LG, ranked by ABI Research as the world's
fourth largest handset vendor, recently released its first-ever Windows Mobile smartphone for the U.S. market, the
AT&T Incite (right). The company had previously offered one Windows Mobile phone internationally, the
KS20. In November, LG and Microsoft
announced a memorandum of understanding that is apparently the harbinger of many Windows Mobile devices to come.
Further informationLG did not provide any further information on its new LTE modem chip. For further information on the LGE technology, see the 3GPP website,
here.
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