First commercial LTE call made
Global telecoms equipment manufacturer and developer Nokia Siemens Network announced yesterday that it had made the world’s first LTE call.
LTE, or long term evolution, is the term commonly used to refer to the next step in mobile technology and the move to 4G connectivity. The LTE specification provides downlink peak rates of at least 100Mbps with an uplink of at least 50Mbps and provides for scaleable carrier bandwidths from 20MHz to 1.4MHz.
The call was made at the company’s research and development site in Ulm, Germany using a commercial base station and standard compliant software.
The world’s first commercial LTE services are due to be opened later this year with mass deployment in first world countries taking place in early 2010.
“It’s a proofpoint of the direction we are going to. Our strategy is focused on deployments and being first to the mass market,” Marc Rouanne, the head of radio networks unit at Nokia Siemens, told Reuters in an interview.
In light of the recent maturity and stability of test LTE networks several international telecoms equipment vendors have secured contracts with major carriers to supply the relevant infrastructure. Although Nokia Siemens Networks has missed out on some of the first contracts, the company believes it is in a strong position as they sell LTE-ready base stations to roughly 80 operators globally.
Although the first commercially available LTE networks will be available as early as next year it is unlikely that South Africa will see increased mobile telecommunications capacity such as this before 2014.
Thus far none of the national service providers have committed themselves to rolling out LTE technology. Despite this, Nokia Siemens Networks does have a presence locally – a factor which might see South Africa as one of the first African countries to implement next generation mobile connectivity.
First LTE call – comments and views
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