LTE: just do it

Nordic operator TeliaSonera is leading the charge in LTE deployment, no doubt watched closely by an industry eager to learn from its experiences. But Tommy Ljunggren, vice president, system development, at Business Area Mobility at TeliaSonera, is bearish about the learning difficulties, saying 4G trials are largely unnecessary.

Speaking to telecoms.com at the LTE World Summit in Amsterdam on Tuesday, Ljunggren said: “If I have one message for the operator community, it’s don’t bother with LTE trials, just deploy it.”

Ljunggren said that, like CSL in Hong Kong, which is also advancing its LTE deployment, a number of operators had come to visit TeliaSonera’s operation in order to find out how an LTE deployment is done.

The TeliaSonera executive spoke candidly about the company’s experiences so far with the 4G technology, saying that it is much more cost effective to buy in new equipment and build a new network than to try and upgrade existing legacy equipment.

He also said that operators should have no fear about becoming a bit pipe as long as they have a strategy that extends beyond this model. “You have to be a smart pipe and partner with service providers,” he said, “because that also incorporates the bit pipe model and allows you to sell access.”

Read the recent interview with Håkan Dahlström, president of mobility services at TeliaSonera