Nokia Plans LTE Devices for 2010

A Nokia executive said today that the company has committed to LTE as its preferred network for devices, and plans to launch devices for those networks in 2010. James Harper, senior manager of technology marketing at Nokia, speaking at a PCCA meeting held in Grapevine, Texas, declined to detail what type of devices the handset maker would launch, but said they would be data intensive.

Perhaps we should expect that Nokia laptop, or something similar to the tablet Nokia pulled for the Clear WiMAX network this year. Harper also declined to say which carrier would carry such devices, which makes sense, given that it�s still early days for deployments of LTE networks. Just one or two carriers are planning network deployments by next year.

Harper also sold WiMAX up the river, with more than half of the slides in his presentation detailing how and why LTE is the �preferred mobile broadband technology after HSPA.� Harper said the backwards compatibility and lack of a clear road map forward were the primary drawbacks to WiMAX.

�WiMAX has some place in the market, but we do believe it�s a niche play,� Harper says. That�s bad news for Clearwire and Sprint, which combined their spectrum last year to develop a WiMAX network. But he could be on to something, as that network seems to have stalled.

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