NTT expands Japanese LTE Network

The Japanese telecom operator NTT Docomo is reported to be increasing its spend on the LTE network by ¥4 billion ($3.9bn) to ¥97.1 ($95.5bn) raising its CAPEX spend slightly in the first quarter of 2016, said, Kazuhiro Yoshizawa, NTT Docomo CEO, as he revealed the telecom operator’s plans to expand its LTE network in Japan.

“Although this was a year-on-year increase when it is compared to our initial plan, the progress of capital expenditures was slightly behind the plan,” said Yoshizawa.

The number of LTE base stations the company owns has reached 143,500 including 30,900 premium 4G base stations. The company intends to expand the number of its premium 4G base stations to 1,203 cities in Japan.

NTT Docomo has already launched a 275 megabit per second broadband service and is investing in carrier aggregation technology for combining new spectrum with 3.5 gigahertz. Its intention is to eventually launch a 377 megabit per second broadband service and expand carrier aggregation to cover 49 cities throughout Japan.

Yoshizawa said to the Telecomlead blog: “During this fiscal year 2016 we plan to launch services that exceed 500 megabit per second and will be using MIMO. Towards 2020, we’ll be enhancing the network foundation for launching 5G,” said Kazuhiro.

NTT Docomo said the number of mobile subscriptions increased by 6% in the last fiscal year, reaching 71.61 million. The number of smartphone and tablet users also increased by 13% to 33.44 million.