Nokia: We’re Wedded to LTE

Nokia is fully committed to LTE as its next-generation wireless technology and will launch devices for the 4G networks next year, according to an executive at the world’s No. 1 mobile phone maker.

Speaking at a meeting of the Portable Computer and Communications Association in Grapevine, Texas, James Harper, Nokia’s senior manager of technology marketing, said that LTE (which stands for “Long Term Evolution”) is the “preferred mobile broadband technology after HSPA.” He did not specify what types of devices Nokia will launch in 2010 to run on LTE networks.

The development comes as no surprise as Nokia last month discontinued the N810 mobile Internet device.

The LTE standard was finalized by the IEEE only recently, and the rollout of networks for the wireless broadband technology lags a year or two behind WiMAX. As more big players line up behind LTE, however, the future looks tough for WiMAX.

Nokia, which commands some 38 percent of the world’s mobile phone market, said last month it plans to move up not only into the “netbook” category, which it calls mobile Internet devices, but to produce laptops as well.

"We are looking very actively also at this opportunity," Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said to Finnish national broadcaster YLE, in remarks after the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona.