Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson win Verizon LTE deal

At this morning's highly anticipated keynote address at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Verizon Communications' executive vice president and CTO Dick Lynch named the key vendors for the company's LTE network deployment. Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent scored deals to be the primary infrastructure vendors for the radio access network. In addition, Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens will be the key suppliers for the IMS network that will enable rich multimedia applications. Finally, the enhanced packet core will be provided by Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and Starent Networks.

• See the entire FierceWireless interview with Lynch here

Verizon, which secured 700 MHz spectrum last year in the FCC auction, has been field testing LTE with Vodafone in Minneapolis, Columbus, Ohio, and Northern New Jersey, as well as in Budapest, Düsseldorf, and Madrid, with a variety of network infrastructure providers. The field trials have demonstrated download rates of 50 to 60 Mbps peak speeds, though actual average download results will not be determined until commercial launch.   

Verizon plans to start deploying LTE at year-end and will launch it with a significant footprint in 2010. In an interview with FierceWireless, Lynch said, "I can demonstrate a commercial system this year. I can show you a footprint of respectable magnitude in 2010."  

The deployment schedule is aggressive but Lynch said he is confident the vendors Verizon selected will stand up to the challenge. "We have had working systems in operation for a few months. I am confident that while it's aggressive and I won't say that there won't be a few bumps in the road along the way. I am comfortable that LTE has essentially been primed for a good launch in 2010." 

Besides the vendor deals, Lynch also said that Verizon will create an LTE Innovation Center, based in suburban Boston, that will be a catalyst for early development of non-traditional products for use on the LTE network. The focus of the center is to help Verizon's tech partners quickly develop and bring the products to market. 

For more:
- see this release
- interview with Dick Lynch

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