Using commercially available infrastructure, Nokia Siemens Network (NSN) has announced it has collaborated with Nokia to achieve the world's first voice call over the 800MHz band.
The two firms said that this interoperability test marked a significant step forward in the commercialisation of LTE in the 800MHz band, which should particularly hasten the deployment of high-speed access in rural areas.
The test, which took place at NSN's LTE Centre of Competence in Espoo, Finland, involved a Nokia RD-3 multiband Internet modem interacting with NSN's Flexi Multiradio base station, its Evolved Packet Core and standard-compliant software.
"These tests are part of a larger campaign which includes various customer trials and demonstrations to make LTE on 800MHz commercially viable by this summer," said NSN's head of LTE business line, Reino Tammela. "Right after the first Digital Dividend spectrum was assigned to operators in the spectrum auction in Germany in May, it was important that standard compliant LTE network products and LTE user devices for this band become commercially available."
While LTE tests have already been conducted in the 2100MHz and 2600MHz bands, the use of 800MHz spectrum for LTE falls within the GSMA's vision of a European harmonised spectrum policy.
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