Having almost disappeared from the infrastructure market, Motorola is taking the LTE fight directly to the largest player, Ericsson, by setting up an LTE demonstration network in the Kista district of Stockholm--home to Ericsson's HQ and numerous R&D and corporate offices.
The US company is inviting Nordic operators to better understand the possibilities of LTE to provide the next generation of broadband services by demoing call hand-over between sectors and a number of video applications.
The LTE network, which Motorola claims was deployed and optimised in 10 days, includes two LTE eNodeBs running on commercial hardware in the 2.6GHz band, together with Motorola's backhaul and evolved packet core products.
The demos take place using the ‘familiar' van stuffed full of technology where those invited will be able to see SD and HD streaming video from a Motorola VOD server, and will also be able to use VoIP calls, web browsing, etc. Within the van, touch-screen tablet PCs connected to a Wi-Fi network (which is backhauled by the LTE network) are also on hand.
While the company claims it is actively involved in LTE trials with operators in North America, Europe and Asia, little of its activities have been made public apart from its efforts in China with TD-LTE trials.
The perception is that the battle for LTE is between Ericsson and Huawei (and perhaps NSN) as these two firms win the majority of deals for trialling LTE in European and China. How Motorola can gain market share in the LTE infrastructure arena will be watched with interest given its present lowly position in the GSM/3G segment.
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