Having secured spectrum in the recent auction, A1 Telekom Austria says it plans to be the first operator to launch LTE services in the country. The company, which has acquired 140MHz of paired spectrum and 50MHz of unpaired spectrum in the 2.6GHz band, bid €13.2 million in the auction that finished earlier this week.
Commenting on the planned launch in Vienna, the company said it hoped to offer its 'A1 Broadband LTE' early next quarter and that this would provide subscribers with speeds up to 150Mbps and a download limit of 30GB for a monthly sum of €90.
Hannes Ametsreiter, CEO Telekom Austria Group, said that the company had been intensively testing LTE for a few years, and "based on our extensive expertise and year-long experience we will be able to start the commercial launch of this cutting-edge technology immediately after the grant of the licence. Our base stations meet all technical prerequisites for the start, thus we will be the first mobile provider to start LTE in Austria."
Orange Austria, T-Mobile Austria and Hutchison 3G Austria each acquired spectrum in the same auction, but gave no indication when they might launch LTE services.
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