Ericsson is making the most of its LTE (long-term evolution) expertise. At 3GSM today the company said it is demonstrating LTE, which is set for release this year. LTE offers speeds up to 144 Mbps on a 20 MHz carrier in the 2.6 GHz frequency band. President and CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg said that this is the first LTE demo.
The infrastructure maker also told press and analysts this morning that it has about 10 percent marketshare in the fragmented infrastructure market and it touted some new operator deals. Ericsson was selected as the IMS supplier to Swisscom. In addition, Grameenphone has hired Ericsson to build and integrate an IP mobile backbone network in Bangladesh. This is Grameenphone's first step toward an all-IP network.
On the services side of the business, Ericsson touted its Napster alliance, noting that it now has 4 operator deals with Napster, two of which are in the U.S. In addition, it said that Greek operator Cosmote has launched Ericsson's hosted music service.
Meanwhile, Sony Ericsson, the joint venture between Ericsson and Sony, celebrated its five-year anniversary at 3GSM. At a press and analyst briefing, President Miles Flint was joined on stage by Svanberg and Howard Stringer, CEO of Sony. The three noted that in five years the company went from two or three handsets to today's substantial portfolio of devices, including the new W880, a super-slim, high performance 3G Walkman that will ship later this month.
For more on Ericsson's LTE demo:
- see this company press release