After five days of talks, some of the world's leading handset makers have agreed technical details for the LTE-Advanced standard that will be submitted for final approval next month and promises transfer speeds of up to 1 Gbps.
The involved, which included HTC, Nokia and Samsung, among others, also discussed how they might collaborate on cross-licensing the technology.
The meeting, which was organised by 3GPP, was tasked with agreeing the technical details for LTE-Advanced Release 10, which it is hoped will achieve final approval at next month's 3GPP plenary meeting in the US and form part of the 3GPP's Release 10 specifications.
"Despite some hopefully minor exceptions, the freeze date is therefore March 2011 for...the LTE-Advanced release," Kevin Flynn, 3GPP's marketing and communication officer, told IDG News Service.
However, despite this move to agree a standard, equipment supporting LTE-Advanced Release 10 is unlikely to be seen before 2016. "As for when it will be deployed, not that fast," Feng Wen-sheng, wireless communications laboratory director within Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute, told IDG. "Release 8 has just gotten started, so this one will come a bit later."
The U.N. International Telecommunication Union has recognised LTE-Advanced as one of two data transfer standards that qualify as "true 4G technologies." The other is Wireless Man-Advanced - sometimes known as WiMAX 802.16m.
For more:
- see this IDG News Service article
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