World's largest mobile technology companies have agreed upon a framework regarding the emerging mobile network technology known as Long Term Evolution (LTE). LTE is the technology which will succeed the current 3G mobile network. It is designed to improve the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) and provide a long-term next-generation network specification.

The companies on board the upcoming LTE standard are Alcatel-Lucent, NEC, Nextwave Wireless, Ericsson, Nokia, Nokia Siemens Networks and Sony Ericsson, with Qualcomm the significant company left out for now. The US company did not want to join for the moment.

"We want to increase the confidence for the roll-out of LTE," said Gustav Brismark, vice president for patent strategies and portfolio management at Ericsson, in a statement.

The main issue of the agreement is the transparency in costs for licensing intellectual property for LTE. The companies involved have pledged to avoid the bitter patent and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) rows which characterized past mobile technologies.

"Today's announcement is a step towards establishing more predictable and transparent licensing costs in a manner that enables faster adoption of new technologies," Ilkka Rahnasto, head of Nokia's intellectual property rights said in a statement.

The first Long Term Evolution demo for HDTV streaming (>30 Mbit/s), video supervision and Mobile IP-based handover between the LTE radio demonstrator and the commercially available HSDPA radio system was showcased during the ITU trade fair in Hong Kong in 2006 by Siemens Communication Department. This year, at the February 2008 Mobile World Congress, among other demos, Freescale Semiconductor showcased streaming HD video with peak data rates of 96 Mbit/s downlink and 86 Mbit/s uplink.