LTE: NSN claims first call made using commercial software

The likelihood of LTE becoming a reality next year has taken a step forward with the announcement from Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) that it had made the world's first LTE call using commercial base stations and fully standard compliant software.

According to NSN, this move, which is viewed as a mandatory precondition for commercial network rollouts and for end users to benefit from a wide range of LTE devices from different vendors, was based upon fully compliant software meeting the 3GPP Rel.8 (March 2009 baseline) LTE standard.

Marc Rouanne, head of NSN's radio access business unit, said that the call, which was made from the company's R&D centre in Ulm, Germany, was a significant landmark and demonstrated the company's commitment to LTE. "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.

Rouanne maintained that NSN, having missed out on some of the first high-profile LTE infrastructure deals, was instead focused on being ready for the mass market. "We are in a strong position with LTE-ready base stations, which can be upgraded with just new software, having sold them to some 80 operators around the world."

Asked to comment on this LTE milestone, Intel--a leading advocate of WiMAX--dismissed the event as being ‘one call', whereas WiMAX was enabling millions of people around the world to access next-gen 4G wireless broadband today.

For more on this story:
Reuters and Hexus

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