Ericsson signs its first LTE licensing deal

Ericsson signed its first LTE licensing deal and indicated that licensing its technology would be a key component of the company's strategy going forward as LTE adoption increases.

The company announced the deal yesterday, and Gustav Brismark, Ericsson's vice president of patent strategies at Ericsson, told Reuters Ericsson already has more than 80 similar patent agreements for GSM and W-CDMA technologies. "The first agreements including LTE have been signed, and over time more or less all these agreements will be renegotiated to include LTE, but that will not be done in a day," he said. 

Brismark also said Ericsson's focus on research and development, coupled with licensing the technologies it develops, would continue to be a part of its business. "We see that we are keeping our leading position as we go from GSM to W-CDMA to LTE," he said. "That is important to be able to continue the strategy of having license revenues as one part of what Ericsson makes money from."

Ericsson has been a key proponent of LTE. Ericsson and TeliaSonera said in May that they launched the world's first commercial Long Term Evolution site in Stockholm, Sweden. According to ABI Research, 10 operators worldwide will launch LTE networks next year, and that 34 million people worldwide are expected to have access to LTE in 2011. Ericsson is one of the vendors Verizon Wireless selected to build the infrastructure for its LTE network, which it will launch in 20 to 30 commercial markets next year.

For more:
- see this Reuters article

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