Geeks across the country are excited by the impending launch of LTE in Australia. Politicians keep wrongfully using it as an alternative to the NBN. But according to Spandas Lui over at ARN, Qualcomm believes LTE technology isn’t even an alternative for 3G.
Lui quotes Qualcomm’s South-East Asia and Pacific president, John Stefanac, who claimed at the ACMA RadComms 2011 event today that LTE and 3G technologies are complimentary.
“There are a lot of people that think LTE will displace and replace 3G, but I don’t see that happening for some time.“
3G still has a very long future for us.”
HSPA+ technology has some life left to give as it doubles theoretical maximum speeds from 42Mbps to 84Mbps and beyond, while LTE needs to consolidate the 20+ bands currently used around the world today before it truly takes off.
Given Qualcomm’s place in the sector, you have to think Stefanac knows what he’s talking about. So while we should all be getting nice and excited by the rollout of LTE wireless technologies, don’t mistake it as a replacement technology for your current 3G/HSPA service.
[ARN Net]