On Oct. 28, Telstra in Australia completed what it claims to be the world's first LTE Broadcast session on a commercial LTE network using Ericsson and Qualcomm technology. Verizon Wireless and AT&T plan to use the technology in the U.S. market. Meanwhile in Europe, any operator with an LTE network is likely to have this technology on its roadmap, and indeed France's Orange and EE in the UK are two operators with firm intentions to deploy LTE Broadcast. The technology is probably still some way ahead in Europe as operators continue to focus on their macro LTE services launches, but the interest in the technology's potential is clearly there.
While operators such as EE see cost savings through the optimization of spectrum and backhaul as an early opportunity for the technology, other use cases are expected to emerge over time, with live events currently expected to be the initial launch pad for service offerings. Find out more about how European operators are approaching LTE Broadcast in this FierceWireless:Europe special report.