T-Mobile International and France Telecom’s Orange this week raised technical issues that they said need to be resolved before LTE technology can be commercially viable, reported Unstrung.  It continued: The operators’ concerns with LTE include: support for voice services; the impact on backhaul capacity; intellectual property rights; the lack of standardization for self-organizing networks (SONs); and the lack of spectrum.  And those are just the chief concerns.  While neither operator committed to a launch timeframe, their plans for LTE lag behind the ambitious timetables set by Verizon Wireless and NTT DoCoMo, both of which are aiming to launch commercial LTE services in 2010.  The main advantage the U.S. operators have over the Europeans at this stage is spectrum — they’ve got it with 700 MHz.  Most European operators, except for those in Sweden and Norway, are still waiting for auctions of 2.6 GHz spectrum and 800 MHz, the so-called “digital dividend” spectrum.  ”So far our plans are focused on 2.6 GHz for LTE,” said Marc Fossier, executive VP of corporate and social responsibility of France Telecom.  ”Our view is that LTE is for new spectrum.”  T-Mobile senior VP of radio networks development Klaus-Juergen Krath said 2.6 GHz and the digital dividend appeared best for getting services to market.  Details.

Tags: 2.6 GHz, 700 MHz, France, France Telecom, Klaus-Juergen Krath, LTE, Marc Fossier, NTT DoCoMo, Orange, T-Mobile, Verizon