Surprise! LTE Standard Frozen

And finally, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has frozen the specifications for LTE, with final formal ratification expected in March 2009.

The move is big news as it’s critical for LTE deployment to be able to move forward. Mucking up the works for LTE rollout has been the fact that the standard has not been gelled — making it difficult for vendors to develop LTE gear at any kind of scale and for service providers to accordingly begin deployments of the fourth generation wireless technology. As of this week, that impediment goes away, for the most part, freeing up vendors to build to the spec with a reasonable expectation that what is now published is the final iteration.

It’s all very good news for carriers wanting to go the LTE route; the time to market advantage that WiMAX is enjoying (paging Sprint and Clearwire) and increasing data uptake rates are pressuring service providers to move to LTE faster than expected. Verizon Wireless, for example, announced last week that it has accelerated its plans for LTE rollouts, aiming for 2009. There was some concern that the operator would have to rely on non-standard equipment, upgrading to the certified iteration at a later date.

It’s also obviously good news for gear-makers, who can now avail themselves of a commercial market that’s coming to fruition quicker than expected.