Nokia Siemens Networks yesterday made the world’s first Long Term Evolution (LTE) call using commercial base stations and standard-compliant software, indicating that the rollout of LTE networks shouldn’t be too far off.
Standard compliant LTE network products and terminals are a precondition for commercial network rollouts and for end users to benefit from a large terminal variety from different vendors.
The Nokia Siemens Networks’ call was made via base stations with fully complaint software to the 3GPP Rel.8 (March 2009 baseline) LTE standard, bringing LTE trials closer to the behaviour of future commercial deployments.
“This call is a significant landmark in building and strengthening our entire LTE ecosystem and shows our commitment to the technology,” says Marc Rouanne, head of Nokia Siemens Networks’ Radio Access business unit.
“We see customers adopting LTE along differing timelines and we stand ready to meet the needs of early adopters of LTE as well as operators with extended migration paths from 3G/HSPA+ to LTE,” he added.
The LTE data call was conducted in Nokia Siemens Networks’ R&D Centre in Ulm, Germany, with its proven and award-winning innovation – the Flexi Multiradio Base Station.
The first deployments for LTE services are foreseen for the end of 2009 with volume rollouts of commercial networks in early 2010. Nokia Siemens Networks is committed to driving the commercial uptake, starting 2010 with an end-to-end solution that provides a future-proof, easy and cost-efficient path to LTE via a software upgrade.
By John Kennedy
Illustration: Nokia Siemens Networks has made the world’s first Long Term Evolution (LTE) call using commercial base stations and standard-compliant software.
