Announcing the Future of LTE

You heard correctly, we’re planning to add “LTE Advanced-ready” technology to our 4G network. The technical trials are complete and we achieved download speeds exceeding 120 Mbps (further evidence that spectrum really matters). Now we’re looking at an initial implementation of our LTE network that aims to target densely populated, urban areas of our existing 4G markets where current usage demands are high.  

LTE Advanced is a 4G technical standard that calls for peak download mobile speeds of at least 100 Mbps, which far exceeds today’s commercial networks. Our LTE network will be “LTE Advanced-ready” meaning that it will use an ultra-high-capacity spectrum configuration that is superior to the typical configuration of the slower, more capacity-constrained commercial LTE network designs in the United States today.

Our LTE implementation plan, which is subject to additional funding, contemplates deploying Time Division Duplex (TDD) LTE technology and reusing our flexible all-IP network architecture as well as upgrading base station radios and some core network elements (which means we can save a lot of money on capital expenses). This will include the use of multicarrier, or multichannel, wideband radios that will be carrier aggregation capable. Carrier aggregation is a key feature of LTE Advanced that will enable us to further leverage our vast spectrum depth to create larger “fat pipes” for deploying mobile broadband service.

“This is the future of mobile broadband,” says Dr. John Saw, Clearwire’s Chief Technology Officer. “Our extensive trial has clearly shown that our ‘LTE Advanced-ready’ network design, which leverages our deep spectrum with wide channels, can achieve far greater speeds and capacity than any other network that exists today. Clearwire is the only carrier with the unencumbered spectrum portfolio required to achieve this level of speed and capacity in the United States.”

“In addition, the 2.5 GHz spectrum band in which we operate is widely allocated worldwide for 4G deployments, enabling a potentially robust, cost-effective and global ecosystem that could serve billions of devices,” Saw added. “We anticipate that the economies of scale derived from this global ecosystem will act as a catalyst for the development of thousands of low-cost devices and applications.  And, since we currently support millions of customers in the 2.5GHz band, we know that our LTE network won’t present harmful interference issues with GPS or other sensitive spectrum bands.” 

Clearwire, together with some of the largest wireless carriers in the world, is a founding member of the Global TDD LTE Initiative (GTI) which aims to bring together leading industry partners to steer the TDD LTE ecosystem as a major standard in mobile broadband technology and drive the development of next generation mobile broadband networks. Member companies that currently support more than a billion subscribers on their networks believe that a global LTE standard has the potential to achieve significant economies of scale and serve hundreds of millions of customers worldwide.