MTN launched its LTE network in SA

MTN launched its LTE network in SA: Pretoria, Midrand area, Johannesbourg area, KwaZulu-Natal. About 1600 3G sites are prepared to LTE transition in following monthes. Average speed 5-20 Mbit/s. //moneyweb.co.za

LTE subs to climb from 114 M in 2013 to 258 M in 2014

The Yankee Group's report notes that the Global Mobile Suppliers Association forecasts there will be 152 commercial LTE networks in 65 countries by the end of 2012, up from 47 networks at the end of 2011. As a result, Yankee predicts there will be 114 million active LTE connections globally by the end of 2013, increasing to 258 million by the end of 2014.

//fiercewireless.com

Apple vetting operators on LTE network performance

Cupertino strict about what carriers have access to the new iPhone 5, but wireless companies must undergo Apple's own 4G testing and approval process before being allowed to promote the iPhone 5 as an LTE device. //telecoms.com

Samsung Galaxy Camera with LTE passed through FCC

Samsung Galaxy Camera FCC EK-GC120 has LTE band 13 radio, WiFi and GPS. It is targeted to Verizon most likely. Samsung will bring an LTE version of the camera to carriers SK Telecom and KT. //theverge.com

Android 4.1 4.8" 16.3 mpix BSI CMOS sensor - specs for South Korea, LTE/3G support. //news.xinhuanet.com

Swisscom Launches its LTE Network in Switzerland

Switzerland's Swisscom has launched its LTE network, with coverage in 26 locations today. Frequencies of 800 MHz, 1800 MHz and 2600 MHz are used. Peak rate of up to 150 Mbps at phase 1 and will be 300 Mbps later. The company said that it will invest around CHF 1.5 billion (US$1.6 billion) in the expansion of its mobile network by 2016. //www.cellular-news.com

VoLTE uses twice as much battery as a current 2G call

The report came from wireless testing and measurement vendor Spirent Communications, which was acquired by Metrico Wireless in September.

A 10 minute call used 680 milliwatts (mW) on CDMA an 1358 mW on VoLTE. Spirent estimated that on a full charge, and with all other data communications turned off, its test smartphone could deliver 502.6 minutes of talk time using CDMA, but only 251.8 minutes of talk time using VoLTE.

Test network was not named, but it is MetroPCS for sure.

//examiner.com

Spectrum sharing with LTE is conceivable but not trivial

LTE has been designed to operate in high-interference environments. The technology divides wide radio channels of 5 MHz or 10 MHz into tiny subcarriers of 15 kHz for actual transmission with the ability to selectively use just a subset of subcarriers at particular times. This makes it fundamentally different from previous CDMA technologies such as CDMA2000 and HSPA that employ wide radio channels of 1.25 MHz in the case of CDMA2000 and 5 MHz in HSPA. This use of subcarriers enables LTE to avoid frequencies on which there may be excessive interference. This core feature of LTE may enable the technology to support spectrum sharing, but don't get too excited that we have identified the silver bullet to the looming spectrum shortage. There are many caveats.

//fiercewireless.com