Alcatel-Lucent and West Central Wireless, a subsidiary of the Central Texas Telephone Cooperative, have signed an agreement to provide LTE service in rural areas of Texas, USA. Under the agreement, Alcatel-Lucent will enable West Central Wireless to launch new 4G LTE service.

Verizon Wireless is aiming to complete its 4G LTE network rollout by mid-2013, announced Fran Shammo, Verizon's EVP & CFO, at Wells Fargo Technology Media & Telecom Conference last week. Verizon Wireless had earlier said that by 2013 the LTE coverage map will match it's current 3G coverage map.

Estonian operator EMT plans to provide LTE coverage to 95% of Estonian population by the end of 2013 and throughout the whole country by the end of 2014. EMT is currently building its 4G LTE network in the 1800MHz and 2600MHz frequency bands.

WiMAX Forum has urged Indian operators to deploy broadband now. In recent BWA auctions India allocated 2 blocks of 20MHz in the 2.3GHz band across the same 22 service areas. 

Ericsson and SoftBank Mobile are working together to further improve the user experience in congested network environments with new Mobility-based Policy. The demonstration connects mobility management and policy control to optimize radio resources and reduce signaling traffic.

Regional Telecom, a communications service provider in Northern Iraq, and Alcatel-Lucent have launched 4G LTE network Iraq under the Fastlink brand. Alcatel-Lucent is providing its end-to-end 4G LTE solution, including base stations, IP mobile backhaul for 4G LTE and existing 3G CDMA traffic and Evolved Packet Core (EPC).