Chipset maker Altair Semiconductor announced that its 700 MHz band class 12 solution, which combines Altair's LTE chipsets and Alcatel-Lucent's (NYSE:ALU) LTE infrastructure, has successfully finished a three-month field trial with a large U.S. wireless operator and is now commercially available.
That large U.S. wireless operator is likely Verizon Wireless, which purchased 25 licenses in the band class at a cost of nearly $2.57 billion. Many of the country's smaller operators, including Cellular South, US Cellular and Cox Communications, also own 700 MHz spectrum in band class 12.
Altair said its solution is the first and only band class 12-compliant commercially ready. Because of powerful RF interference from terrestrial digital broadcast TV and MediaFLO, band class 12's spectral efficiency has been problematic. Altair said the band class 12 solution demonstrated that it can eliminate nearly all RF interference, achieving high throughputs. Altair said it used its software-defined-radio-based processor architecture and used algorithmic solutions to improve and optimize the band's spectrum usage.
Cellular South and Samsung announced a strategic alliance in November to build an LTE network in band class 12. The alliance also calls for Samsung Mobile to supply Cellular South with two LTE band class 12 LTE smartphone handsets. The devices and the network are expected to be ready for launch in the fourth quarter.
For more:
- see this release
Related articles:
Agilent, Altair announce LTE interoperability testing
Cellular South partners with Samsung on LTE network, smartphones
Verizon blasts Cellular South's LTE plans, argues against federal oversight