At the end of 2011, we count 33 commercial LTE services worldwide, which is up from just nine at the end of 2010. (See Where in the World Is LTE?.)
And while the U.S. is perceived as the hottest LTE market around, it's certainly not the only place to find some LTE action. Indeed, the next-generation mobile broadband service is now available in countries across the Asia/Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East as well as North America. In Europe, TeliaSonera AB (Nasdaq: TLSN) alone has launched LTE services in seven markets across its footprint.
To make it onto our list, it had to be clear that a potential customer could go to an operator's shop or website, buy a device and subscribe to an LTE service. We did not include pilots, user trials or so-called "commercial networks," where an operator may have launched an LTE network but it is not yet offering devices or charging customers to use the service.
As always, we welcome feedback. If there are any commercial services or price plan details that we missed here, please let us know on the message board.
Table 1: Commercial LTE Services
Operator
Where
Monthly Price
Equipment Suppliers*
3 Austria
Austria
€49 (US$64) for unlimited data
ZTE
Antel
Uruguay
1,780 Uruquay pesos ($89) for 30GB
Alcatel-Lucent
AT&T
US
$50 for 5GB mobile hot spot plan; $25 for 2GB 4G tablet plan
Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson
Bell Canada
Canada
$45 ($44) for 2GB
Huawei, NSN
CSL
Hong Kong
HK$459 ($59) for unlimited data or HK$349 ($45) for 5GB
ZTE
Deutsche Telekom
Germany
€89.95 ($117) for 50GB
Huawei, NSN
Elisa
Finland
€39.80 ($52)
NSN
EMT (TeliaSonera subsidiary)
Estonia
€120 ($157) for unlimited data
Ericsson, NSN
Etisalat
United Arab Emirates
449 Emirati dirham ($122) for 20GB
Alcatel-Lucent
LG Telecom
South Korea
n/a
LG-Ericsson, NSN, Samsung
LMT (TeliaSonera subsidiary)
Latvia
19 Latvian Lat ($35) for unlimited data
NSN
M1
Singapore
S$59.40 ($45)
Huawei
MetroPCS
US
$60
Ericsson, Samsung
Mobily
Saudi Arabia
n/a
Huawei, NSN, Samsung
NTT Docomo
Japan
¥5,985 ($77)
Fujitsu, Ericsson, NEC, NSN
Omnitel (TeliaSonera subsidiary)
Lithuania
69 Lithuanian litas ($26) for 5GB
Huawei
Rogers Communications
Canada
$50 ($48) for 10GB
Ericsson
Saudi Telecom Company (STC)
Saudi Arabia
99 Saudi Arabian riyal ($26) for 5GB or 199 Saudi Arabian riyal ($53) for 10GB
Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei, NSN
SK Telecom
South Korea
62,000 South Korean won ($53)
LG-Ericsson, NSN, Samsung
SKY Brazil
Brazil
n/a
NSN
Tele2
Sweden
299 Swedish kronor ($43)
Huawei
Telefonica O2 Germany
Germany
€39.90 ($52) for LTE at home service
Huawei, NSN
Telekom Austria
Austria
€89.90 ($117) for 40GB
Huawei
Telenor
Norway
n/a
Hauwei
Telenor
Sweden
549 Swedish kronor ($79)
Huawei
TeliaSonera
Denmark
299 Danish kronor ($52) for 30GB
NSN
TeliaSonera
Finland
€39.90 ($52) for 30GB
Ericsson, NSN
TeliaSonera
Norway
199 Norwegian kronor ($33) for 15GB
Ericsson, Huawei
TeliaSonera
Sweden
299 Swedish kronor ($43) for 20GB
Ericsson
Telstra
Australia
A$49 ($49) for 7GB
Ericsson
Verizon Wireless
US
$50 for 10GB or $80 for 20GB
Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson
Vodafone Germany
Germany
€29.99 ($39) for LTE at home service
Ericsson, Huawei
Zain
Saudi Arabia
350 Saudi Arabian riyal ($93)
Ericsson, Huawei, Motorola
*For radio access equipment. Sources: Operator information, Light Reading
Please find below the news release, dated December 4th :
"Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced its selection by Saudi Telecom Company (STC), the leading service provider in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to launch the first 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) wireless network in the country, bringing subscribers true broadband services to their mobile devices".
The question is, would all of the money that all of these Telco's spend on actual equipment (not the money that goes to payoff their union labor and company executives) to upgrade their networks to support LTE for all of next year exceed one quarter of Cisco's sales? I seriously doubt it. Chambers knows what he is doing and that is why he is not touching this market with a ten foot pole. Despite heavy demand on their networks, these guys are not serious about taking care of their customers.
What happned to NSN at TeliaSonera? The end of 2010 showed NSN at 4 of TeliaSonera networks (Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland). Now it is only in Finland.
I had the impression that Saudi Telecom C had ordered equipment from 4 suppliers, thus adding Alcatel Lucent and NSN to Huawei and Ericsson. Am I mistaken ?
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