IP Communications

Mobile communication standard, Long Term Evolution (LTE (News - Alert)) Advanced is currently being studied by 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for Release 10. The standard is accepted as the advancement of Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) and Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS).

 

Nokia Siemens (News - Alert) Networks, the joint venture formed between Nokia and Siemens, has been working on LTE and LTE-Advanced technology research and standardization work in 3GPP.

 

The company has successfully demonstrated Relaying technology proposed for LTE-Advanced, enabling an exceptional end-user experience delivered consistently across the network. Relaying technology is a technology that can also be integrated in normal base station platforms and is cost efficient and easy to deploy as it does not require additional backhaul.

 

The demonstration of this technology was completed in Nokia Siemens Networks (News - Alert) research facilities in Germany and it illustrated how advances to Relaying technology can further improve the quality and coverage consistency of a network at the cell edge.

 

This demonstration has further stabilized the technological development path for the next stage of LTE to be secure and future-proof.

 

“Demonstrating improved cell edge and indoor-user data rates, is an important milestone for coverage scenarios. It further strengthens the position of LTE as the major mobile broadband technology,” said Stephan Scholz, chief technology officer at Nokia Siemens Networks. 

 

“Consumers will enjoy an even richer user experience thanks to higher throughput everywhere in the cell, while operators will be able to deploy their networks in a more flexible and cost efficient way,” added Scholz.

 

Scholz also mentioned on LTE Advanced as the next step in the evolutionary development of LTE technology. He highlighted on Nokia Siemens Networks’ extensive research activities for LTE-Advanced in developing this important technology which is crucial for the customers in the future.

 

Nokia Siemens Networks has been working in enabling operators towards faster and richer broadband performance.

 

Nokia Siemens Networks demonstrated LTE technology in 2006 with data speeds in the 160Mb/s range as well as a successful handover between LTE and HSPA, and again in 2007 the company demonstrated a multi-user field trial in an urban environment with peak data rates of 173 Mb/s.

 

In February 2008 Nokia Siemens Networks showcased a live demo on commercial hardware and launched its LTE solution based on Flexi Multimode Base Station. Again, in September 2008 Nokia Siemens Networks started to ship its LTE compatible Flexi Multimode Base Station hardware.

 

Currently the company has demonstrated a method by combining an LTE system supporting a 2x2 MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) antenna system, and a Relay station.

 

The Relaying operates in-band and are connected to the nearest base stations by using radio resources within the operating frequency band of the base station itself. Towards the terminal they are base stations and offer the full functionality of LTE.

 

The improved cell coverage and system fairness will allow operators to utilize existing LTE network infrastructure and still meet growing bandwidth demands.