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Tech firms jostle for position in LTE market

Ericsson and Alcatel Lucent lead, Huawei sneaking up behind

Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent are staking big early claims in the LTE market, particularly in the US, according to networking and telco research firm Dell'Oro.

The bits and bobs that are actually needed to roll out the LTE networks that carriers such as Verizon Wireless and AT&T are crowing about are in large part being supplied by the two behind-the-scenes mobile firms.

Ericsson had a hold on 44 per cent of the $647m market in the third quarter of this year and Alcatel was controlling 30 per cent, Dell'Oro's mobility infrastructure quarterly report said, according to Reuters.Third-place Chinese firm Huawei's share was 8 per cent and Nokia Siemens Networks placed fourth.

“Increased macro economic uncertainties have not affected mobile operators’ short-term appetite for investing in mobile broadband,” analyst Stefan Pongratz said in a canned statement. “The majority of the mobile operators have maintained their original mobile infrastructure capital expenditure plans for 2011."

LTE-gear manufacturers are doing everything they can to get in with the early adopters so they can show off the networks to new clients, as the clamor for more and more data drives operators to invest in the next generations of mobile broadband.

Huawei is a distant trailer to Ericsson and Alcatel Lucent now, but it has built up significant international contracts all over the world in the last 10 years, and now has more sales globally than at home, which can only help with winning future business.

In the UK, the firm is part of BT and Everything Everywhere's Cornish trial of fixed and mobile broadband on the same network, and the company is also the key tech provider for New Zealand's national fibre network. ®

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