Long Term Evolution (LTE)-based services are garnering a lot of attention in
the mobile broadband industry, despite the fact that they are at least two years
away from being deployed.

LTE, considered by many analysts to be the next big wave in 4G
wireless technology, is due to be launched commercially in 2010 by Verizon
and AT&T,
roughly two years after the Clearwire coalition's big commercial WiMAX
launch slated for later this year.

Technically speaking, LTE is a modulation technique that is the latest variation
of Global Systems for Mobile Communications (GSM)
technology. Its developers at the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)
dubbed it "Long Term Evolution" because they view it as the natural
progression of High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA),
the GSM
technology that is currently used by carriers such as AT&T to deliver 3G
mobile broadband.

GSM is by far the dominant
mobile standard worldwide, with more the 2 billion global customers. In the
United States, however, the only carriers that currently use GSM are AT&T
and T-Mobile. Carriers
Verizon and Sprint
both use the rival Code Division for Multiple Access (CDMA)
technology, although Verizon is due to move over to the GSM side when it launches
its own LTE network sometime in 2010.

While it is far too early to predict how successful LTE will be in the enterprise
market, recent trends indicate that demand for the technology could get a significant
boost as businesses demand ever-faster mobile broadband access. For instance,
a recent survey
conducted by market research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey reports that nearly
half of all enterprises currently use 3G cellular services, and that more than
one-third plan on using WiMAX technology within the next year.

The major reasons for deploying mobile enterprise applications, the survey
finds, include increased employee productivity and increased employee availability,
as more than 80% of corporate users list both of them as key reasons for using
more mobile technologies. If demand for increased mobile broadband speeds continues
to be strong, LTE could be in a good position to compete with WiMAX as a widely
deployed mobile broadband standard
when it comes to market in 2010.

"We're seeing some indications that enterprises are beginning to look
at wireless broadband as extension of the network itself," says Mike Jude,
an analyst at Nemertes Research. "They're starting to think about how to
enable mobile networks with access to company applications such as enterprise

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