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Old 03.02.2012, 21:17
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LTE (4G) pilot from Swisscom

Today at the metropole shopping centre in Lausanne I noticed a big sign that said that Swisscon is testing LTE in Switzerland.

Given that I am on prepaid and I am considering options for a contract (as soon as my permit arrives), I will go tomorrow to check price plans and devices.

I will let you know, but I was wondering if anybody knows if they actually have LTE phones or if it's only USB sticks. According to this there are no phones, but it was posted on December 8.
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Old 04.02.2012, 06:56
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Re: LTE (4G) pilot from Swisscom

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Today at the metropole shopping centre in Lausanne I noticed a big sign that said that Swisscon is testing LTE in Switzerland.

Given that I am on prepaid and I am considering options for a contract (as soon as my permit arrives), I will go tomorrow to check price plans and devices.

I will let you know, but I was wondering if anybody knows if they actually have LTE phones or if it's only USB sticks. According to this there are no phones, but it was posted on December 8.
don't bother. The test is only for a couple of winter-sports destinations and 11 Swisscom shops (not the entire mall - just the SC shop in Lausanne). And yes, it's notebook / USB-stick-only for the moment, unless you're able to find an LTE-enabled smartphone that can use the frequencies offered in Europe (US-phones won't work).
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Old 04.02.2012, 08:30
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Re: LTE (4G) pilot from Swisscom

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don't bother. The test is only for a couple of winter-sports destinations and 11 Swisscom shops (not the entire mall - just the SC shop in Lausanne). And yes, it's notebook / USB-stick-only for the moment, unless you're able to find an LTE-enabled smartphone that can use the frequencies offered in Europe (US-phones won't work).
There are two: the Galaxy SII and the Galaxy SII HD.
Both with tri-band LTE: 800 / 1800 / 2600MHz. So they will both work in all European LTE networks.
Telia offers the first one: http://www.telia.se/privat/katalog/V...-lte.product#4

So, are you really sure they don't offer any phone yet?
Maybe you checked before Christmas? I really want to test an LTE Galaxy SII!
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Old 04.02.2012, 14:08
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Re: LTE (4G) pilot from Swisscom

Germany, Sweden and a few other countries have LTE deployed in a large-scale and more customer hardware is available there. Switzerland is only testing (ie: pilot) LTE right now, in less than a dozen locations, as noted on Swisscom's website. They are still pretty far from having a full, nation-wide LTE network built and offering it commercially. They have a few data cards now and that's it, as there's not really any need to have a full range of LTE devices in their portfolio now. If you want to bring your own LTE phone to the party, and only use it in the few test locations, it could be possible, but you'd better check with Swisscom first before buying anything.

Generally speaking, most LTE operators are offering it primarily for data, as the voice part of LTE was not fully worked out in the specs yet (VoLGA or IMS). Even on the LTE phones that are available, the voice is most likely going over the legacy (GSM/UMTS) connection, and only data connections on LTE.

...actually, the first LTE->UMTS call hand-over was only demo'ed yesterday, so it just goes to show that voice on LTE is not really all there yet!
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/mobile-d...over-40094971/
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Old 04.02.2012, 15:49
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Re: LTE (4G) pilot from Swisscom

I know all this, but believe me, I would not be unhappy using 2G/3G for voice and keep the LTE for my data (I don't do any legacy calls anyway, Voip please!).
Anyway, I'll do a one year contract now hoping that in 12 months we'll have real LTE.
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