The US mobile broadband provider will deploy LTE in more densely populated urban areas where there is high demand for 4G services. The company has said that it is still committed to its existing WiMAX network which covers 132 million people and all 4G phones offered by majority shareholder Sprint.
“This is the future of mobile broadband," said John Saw, Clearwire's CTO. "Our extensive trial has clearly shown that our 'LTE Advanced-ready' network design, which leverages our deep spectrum with wide channels, can achieve far greater speeds and capacity than any other network that exists today.”
Clearwire cites the increased uptake of video through smartphones as the reason for needing a higher-capacity 4G wholesale network. LTE technology has the capability of peak download mobile speeds of at least 100Mbps.
The LTE implementation plan is still waiting for additional funding but the company has said it is contemplating using Time Division Duplex (TDD) LTE technology.
At the end of last month, Capacity reported on the sharp rise in the uptake of LTE technologies by telcos over WiMAX. WiMAX is still predicted to grow over the coming years but this latest announcement by Clearwire shows that LTE is becoming the technology of choice.
