Long term evolution (LTE), being developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership (3GPP) as the successor to high speed packet access, is never far from the headlines.
When you read that Verizon and Vodaphone are working jointly towards adopting LTE or that NTT has developed a 3G LTE chipset, it would be easy to think that deployment was not far off. Yet the most optimistic of industry commentators suggest that three to four years is the reality.
As the next evolution of 3G, LTE was long ago suggested as a way of potentially upgrading UMTS networks worldwide. Aside from an obvious desire to increase data rates and capacity, the incentive to migrate to next generation communications technologies is the need for operators to drive down costs and grow market share.
