Is the UK holding up LTE smartphones?

It seems that I was wrong the other day about HTC bringing the first LTE phone to Europe via Vodafone. While the HTC is little while off, according to ITWorld, the Samsung Galaxy S II LTE is apparently winging its way to stores in Sweden. The country, along with Norway, has had an LTE service since TeliaSonera launched in 2009, making it one of the first launches in the world. However, up till now there have been no smartphones available, which compares unfavourably with the US, which has a whole bunch on offer on AT&T, Verizon and even ‘lil ol’ Metro PCS.

The reason is simply one of economies of scale. As all LTE phone in the US operate on one of the 700MHz bands and there’s quite a large market, it’s worth it for it for Samsung and HTC to produce LTE phones. In Europe, LTE has been scarcer than a train running on time on my work commute, so there’s been little incentive for the device manufacturers to produce one.

Now it seems that smartphones are beginning to trickle through, and no doubt we’ll see a lot more LTE related announcement at Mobile World Congress in a couple of weeks. What we want is it to turn into a flood and the damn holding it back though is likely to be the UK (damn UK).

It might not be the largest but there’s no doubt that the UK is one of the major markets in Europe, and as the LTE auction isn’t even taking place until later in the year no one is expecting a live network until 2014 at the earliest. The sluggishness of the UK market could well have a knock on effect on the whole of the European smartphone LTE market. Once European users start carrying LTE enabled handset it might spur the UK operators to make sure they stop their bickering and press on with their LTE plans.

Samsung beating HTC to the punch is also another blow for the Taiwanese manufacturer which has recently been struggling with poor recent results, mainly down to the rise of Samsung’s Galaxy line.

Is there an LTE network on its way near you? Do you already use LTE but are you frustrated at the lack of a compatible handset?

Selling LTE: Is Verizon getting it wrong?

In the UK we tend to think of LTE as something of a specialist subject due to the fact that the average ‘normal’ person on the street hasn’t heard of it. That’s fair enough, as it’s not coming to these isles until 2014 at the earliest, and probably 20014 if the operators are allowed to drag their heels. But that’s another story. In the US however, it’s mainstream enough for Saturday Night Live to run a skit, making fun of Verizon’s advertising of the service.

The customer walks in and is clearly savvy enough to ask the sales rep to tell him more about ‘4G LTE’, and is then promptly bamboozled by a stream of confusing network specifications.

Best lines? “1 song, 4 seconds.” Puzzled look. “The song is four seconds?”

After being flung a list of buzzy Android phone names he asks, “What happens if I drop it down the toilet?” Response. “It breaks immediately”.

Tagline? “Verizon – an old person’s nightmare”

(Apologies for poor screen cam quality, but original not available on YOuTube due to draconian location limitations – (i.e. you’re outside of the US? But there’s nothing outside of the US!).

The point is clear. Verizon might be well known as the LTE leader in the US, but is doing a poor job at communicating the benefits of the technology and the gadgets that come with it. Lesson to other operators – do it better.

It might be terribly predictable to say, but there is one company that will do a probably better job of explaining why LTE is great, while offering a simpler, clear strategy to deliver it to customers via a single device. And they’ll probably do it this summer. Answer on a post card below. No prizes.

Has LTE hurt HTC?

LTE has been a drain on HTC fortunes. Can it do better in 2012?

It seems that things aren’t going so well for Taiwanese manufacturer HTC, after it reported lower than expected quarterly earnings, bringing to and end four quarters of growth. Oops.

For a company that was famed for its stratospheric rise into public consciousness, it’s a bit of a come down. HTC was known to mobile aficionados, (or geeks as they are more commonly known), as the manufacturers behind early smartphones such as the Windows Mobile powered Orange SPV. It first introduced a touch screen device in 2007 (called the HTC Touch – brilliant) just before the iPhone was released. When Android came along HTC was able to really express itself though, producing powerful, affordable, quality hardware, married to an advanced, cutting-edge OS, enhanced, in the main, with its own ‘Sense’ overlay. It was a successful formula – and led to it quickly becoming the standard bearer for Android.

In fact, consumers were soon talking about an ‘HTC’ as a rival for the iPhone, rather than an ‘Android’.  No mean feat.

However, it turns out the problem wasn’t Apple, it was Samsung. The Korean manufacturer has stolen its thunder as the goto Android alternative, with its Galaxy line taking over from ‘HTC’ as that ‘not-an-iPhone’ brand leader. Samsung quadrupled its smarthone sales in 2011 compared to 2010 and with the iPhone leaving hot cakes in the shade for umpteenth year running, it’s been at the expense of HTC rather than Apple.

So what is the problem for HTC? A big issue in the US is that instead of technical leadership, in 2011 it became known for producing too many phones that were hard to differentiate. It’s also clear that LTE hindered rather than helped. The phones were generally 3G devices with LTE functionality bolted on. This obviously requires a lot of power, but HTC tended to keep the batteries relatively thin, in order to avoid burdening the phones, and the users pockets, with an even larger footprint.  iOS5.0 battery issue Snafu aside, Apple also puts a lot of work into battery life optimisation, which is inevitably harder to do when OS and manufacturer are not vertically aligned.

The end result is that HTC LTE phones have quickly became known as power hungry clunky bricks rather that the technical, speedy tour-de-forces that it probably had intended. Not cool.

Indeed HTC’s top brass have come out and said as much, with its CFO admitted that it had “dropped the ball” with its recent line-up. In comparison, Apple’s reserved and patient approach to LTE looks ever more sensible.

A Nokia 6310 – last charged in 2003, and still going. Fully multimedia too – Calls AND texts.

LTE in Europe is still limited and HTC and Samsung have clearly been concentrating on the 700MHz LTE frequencies used in the States as that’s where the volume is right now but HTC has just announced that the Velocity is coming to Vodafone Germany soon. As LTE starts to roll out in the Europe and the Middle-East though, we could soon be faced with the same LTE-induced battery pain that the US has (One advantage of the UK not having LTE until the mid 22^nd century, (probably), is that the chipsets will at least decidedly mature and the chronic battery issues will presumably be sorted. Presumably).

So if you’re in Europe will you be jumping on board with LTE as soon as you can get your mits on a smartphone? Will you keep your phone and go with a Mifi device? Wait for the iPhone 5? Or see how it all pans out and just stick with your Nokia 6310. Now that was a phone…