Long Term Evolution

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LTE (Long Term Evolution) is the trademarked project name of a high performance air interface for cellular mobile telephony. It is a project of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), operating under a named trademarked by one of the associations within the partnership, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute.

LTE is a step toward the 4th generation (4G) of radio technologies designed to increase the capacity and speed of mobile telephone networks. Where the current generation of mobile telecommunication networks are collectively known as 3G (for "third generation"), LTE is marketed as 4G. Ideally, LTE is a 3.9G technology since it does not fully comply with the IMT Advanced 4G requirements. Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility in the United States and several worldwide carriers announced plans, beginning in 2009, to convert their networks to LTE. The world's first publicly available LTE-service was opened by TeliaSonera in the two Scandinavian capitals Stockholm and Oslo on the 14th of December 2009. LTE is a set of enhancements to the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) which was introduced in 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Release 8. Much of 3GPP Release 8 focuses on adopting 4G mobile communications technology, including an all-IP flat networking architecture. On August 18, 2009, the European Commission announced it will invest a total of €18 million into researching the deployment of LTE and 4G candidate system LTE Advanced.

While it is commonly seen as a mobile telephone or common carrier development, LTE is also endorsed by public safety agencies in the US as the preferred technology for the new 700 MHz public-safety radio band. Agencies in some areas have filed for waivers[3] hoping to use the 700 MHz spectrum with other technologies in advance of the adoption of a nationwide standard.