Verizon Wireless said Feb. 18 Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent will be the primary vendors for the company's initial LTE (Long Term Evolution) network deployments in the United States. With a target deployment date of 2010, Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent will build the underlying infrastructure for Verizon Wireless to become the first wireless company to offer commercial LTE-based service in the United States.
In a keynote speech at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Dick Lynch, Verizon executive vice president and chief technology officer, also added that Nokia Siemens Networks and Alcatel-Lucent will be the key suppliers for the IP Multi-Media Subsystem (IMS) network. A cornerstone technology of Verizon's services infrastructure, Verizon plans to offer IMS-based IP converged applications and services on its wireless and landline broadband networks.

LTE, Lynch said, will be one of the key wireless access networks linked to the IMS technology.

"Verizon Wireless' LTE network deployment will be driven by our vision of providing ubiquitous global wireless broadband connectivity and mobility," Lynch said in the keynote. "LTE enables us to continue to meet business customer demands for a higher bandwidth, low latency service that works broadly in the United States and globally, while helping us to meet consumer demand for mobilizing the many applications they frequently use when tethered to high bandwidth wired networks."

Verizon Wireless, a joint venture between Verizon and Vodafone, will use the spectrum it obtained for $6.5 billion in last year's FCC (Federal Communications Commission) 700 MHz auction to run its LTE network. The spectrum is currently held by broadcasters who are scheduled to vacate the spectrum in June.

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