Capacity issue will not be resolved by LTE say European telcos

Many telecoms operators are looking at the issues regarding network capacity in different ways and whilst Deutsche Telekom is fighting for more spectrum and Telefonica is considering the femtocell option most operators feel that the use of Wi-Fi as a offload route could prove to be a problem.

The current capacity constraints that are being faced by mobile network providers in Europe is something they are all having to battle against and even though there are a variety of options open to them the fact that using LTE on its own will not resolve this capacity issue is something they all appear to agree on.

Without the necessary spectrum mobile network operators would be unable to implement LTE networks said Denis Gautheret, an executive for Deutsche Telekom at the opening of a panel session at Broadband World Forum recently.

Giving reference to the recent wave of strikes throughout France he advised the Paris audience “Spectrum is just like gas. You don’t have enough.” It is currently the lower frequency bands, which are far more useful for services like mobile broadband where the spectrum shortages are at their worst. Gautheret noted as an example that compared to the 2.6GHz band the 800 MHz band is 10 times more efficient, which is probably why Germany raised far more for the 800 MHz spectrum when it recently auctioned of both of the spectrum bands.

If deployed at the lower 800 MHz frequency band the use of LTE would help to resolve in-building coverage issues advised Jaime Lluch Ladron, the new technology executive for Telefonica in Spain, although he went on to advise that this would not be a long term solution and that even this “is not going to be enough.”

Source – Total Tele