LTE World Summit Drives the Future of Next Generation Networks and LTE

The world’s leading 4G LTE event, LTE World Summit, took the industry into a new era last week, as thousands of visitors filled Amsterdam’s RAI Exhibition Centre. The ninth annual event witnessed record numbers and fuelled discussions on the future of LTE and the opportunities it presents for the entire ecosystem.

With an impressive speaker line-up, delegates and visitors were given the opportunity to listen to major industry players, including Erik Hoving, Chief Strategy, Innovation and Technology Officer at KPN Group; Dr. Jae W. Byun, CTO at SK Telecom, South Korea; Adrian Scrase, CTO of ETSI and Head of 3GPP Mobile Competence Centre; Alain Maloberti, Senior Vice President of Network Architecture and Design at Orange, France; Iain Dendle, Business Development Director of Shazam, UK; Chang Feng, VP Technology and Innovation at ooVoo, USA; Roxanna Zea, CSO at Tele2, Sweden; and Rob Shuter, CEO of Vodafone, Netherlands.

Day one saw Erick Hoving from KPN Group take to the stage, sharing his belief that LTE should not be about the technology, but instead should be about educating consumers as to what LTE can do for them and how it can make things better. The host operator also explored the idea of creating a next generation network for future generations, and user behaviour and carrier interaction. The opening day also saw Dr. Jae W. Byun, CTO at SK Telecom, reveal that since its launch in 2011, the company now has 19 million LTE subscribers, some 73 per cent of its market and the good news that its ARPU is 28 per cent more than 3G users, a great example of LTE being self-monetising.

The event went from strength to strength as day two opened by Adrian Scrase from ETSI and Head of 3GPP Mobile Competence Centre. This was followed by the presentation of Orange Group’s LTE case study by Alain Maloberti, Senior Vice President Network Architecture and Design, and presentations by IP Hong, VP, Marketing at Samsung and Chang-Seok Seo, Vice President of Network Technology Unit at Korea Telecom.

The beautiful De Duif in Amsterdam provided the perfect backdrop for the Telecoms.com LTE Awards, which acknowledged outstanding technologies and services and celebrated excellence across the industry. 2013 winners included Alcatel-Lucent, LG Electronics, Actix, SK Telecom, Samsung Electronics, Citrix ByteMobile and Qualcomm, amongst others. For the full list, please go to: http://lteawards.com/2013-winners-2/.

This year’s event also saw an array of stimulating activity from exhibitors, which included ETELM which used the event to launch the world’s first gateway-free TETRA basestation; ERCOM which shared and demonstrated its lab emulation technologies; and TeliaSonera International Carrier (TSIC) and iBasis, a KPN company, which announced an LTE Roaming peering agreement that will ensure interoperability and a consistent user experience for roaming LTE subscribers.

Dan Cole, LTE World Series Senior Marketing Executive, says: “We had some great feedback from exhibitors and attendees, many of whom commented that the event agenda truly reflected the nature of the industry. The event has experienced a sustained period of growth year on year, and with exhibitors already booking space for next year, we hope to replicate and build upon our success at next year’s LTE World Summit.”

To hear feedback from some of the speakers and exhibitors, and to see highlights from this year’s event, please visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcIEh1Er6-M&feature=youtu.be.

Following the huge success of this year’s event, Informa Telecoms & Media can confirm that LTE World Summit will return to the RAI Exhibition Centre in Amsterdam for 2014. The dates for next year are 23-25 June 2014. For further information, visit http://ws.lteconference.com/ or follow @LTEWorldSeries to gain exclusive previews ahead of 2014’s conference and exhibition.