<p>The world's first publicly available LTE service was launched by <a title="TeliaSonera" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeliaSonera">TeliaSonera</a> in <a title="Oslo" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo">Oslo</a> and <a title="Stockholm" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm">Stockholm</a> on 14 December 2009<sup><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_%28telecommunication%29#cite_note-3"></a></sup> LTE is the natural upgrade path for both carriers with GSM/UMTS networks and for <a title="CDMA" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDMA">CDMA</a> holdouts such as <a title="Verizon Wireless" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Wireless">Verizon Wireless</a>, who launched the first large-scale LTE network in North America in 2010, and <a title="Au (mobile phone company)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Au_%28mobile_phone_company%29">au by KDDI</a> in Japan have announced they will migrate to LTE. LTE is, therefore,  anticipated to become the first truly global mobile phone standard,  although the use of different <a title="LTE frequency bands" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_frequency_bands">frequency bands</a> in different countries will mean that only multi-band phones will be able to use LTE in all countries where it is supported.</p>
<p>Although marketed as a <a title="4G" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4G">4G</a> wireless service, LTE as specified in the 3GPP Release 8 and 9 document  series does not satisfy the technical requirements the 3GPP consortium  has adopted for its new standard generation, and which were originally  set forth by the <a title="ITU-R" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITU-R">ITU-R</a> organization in its <a title="IMT-Advanced" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMT-Advanced">IMT-Advanced</a> specification. However due to marketing pressures and the significant advancements that <a title="WIMAX" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIMAX">WIMAX</a>, <a title="HSPA+" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSPA%2B">HSPA+</a> and LTE bring to the original 3G technologies, ITU later decided that  LTE together with the aforementioned technologies can be called 4G  technologies. The <a title="LTE Advanced" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_Advanced">LTE Advanced</a> standard formally satisfies the <a title="ITU-R" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITU-R">ITU-R</a> requirements to be considered <a title="IMT-Advanced" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMT-Advanced">IMT-Advanced</a>.<sup><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_%28telecommunication%29#cite_note-7"></a></sup> And to differentiate <a title="LTE-Advanced" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE-Advanced">LTE-Advanced</a> and <a title="Wimax-Advanced (page does not exist)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wimax-Advanced&amp;action=edit&amp;redlink=1">Wimax-Advanced</a> from current 4G technologies, ITU has defined them as "True 4G".</p>