LTE device certification ready by year end

With a growing number of high-profile LTE launches planned for this year, the Global Certification Forum (GCF) has just announced that it is on schedule to release an LTE device certification scheme by the end of 2010. The GCF said its certification scheme will include both FDD and TDD versions of LTE.

Seemingly unconcerned about LTE deployments that might take place during this year, the GCF said it had split planned field trials into two phases. The first phase, with a completion date of June, would include between 80 and 90 new field test scenarios consistent with the functionality anticipated in the first commercial LTE devices. The organisation said that several major operators, manufacturers, test companies and the GSMA devices group were working together on the development of LTE field trial procedures.

To develop appropriate conformance testing the GCF said it had divided the task into three distinct areas--RF, the E-UTRA protocol and the Evolved Packet Core protocol. Six teams had been established to develop the conformance criteria for each of the three areas across the FDD and TDD variants, and work was already underway.

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LTE-to-HSPA hand-off demonstrated, courtesy of ST-Ericsson