Ericsson showcases first LTE TDD datacall in India

Just weeks after the BWA auctions drew to a close, India is finally taking concrete steps towards launching LTE in India. After much speculation by various telecom operators, vendors, experts and telecom minister A.Raja himself, Ericsson has become the first to successfully demonstrate the first LTE TDD datacall over air using the 2.3 GHz (Indian BWA) band.

Performed at the Experience Centre, Ericsson Forum in Gurgaon, Ericsson's success will not only help it to make good on its promises to spearhead the broadband and LTE revolution in India by offering the fastest mobile broadband speeds, and sending and receiving HD video, but it will also spur other players like Huawei and NSN who have successfully launched LTE trials the world over to host similar trials in India.

According to Gowton Achaibar, head of Ericsson India, “The trial in India reflects Ericsson's technology leadership in the LTE domain. This trial gives a glimpse of what the future can offer our customers in the mobile broadband space. LTE will transform the mobile-broadband user experience, providing the ultra-high data speeds needed for services such as internet TV, mobile video-blogging, online video games and the mobile office-environment.”
The objective of the LTE trial is to showcase the potency of the network capability to industry players such as mobile operators, application developers, content providers and game developers to help them create breakthrough products and services for the Indian market. Further trials will now continue, demonstrating network capabilities using broadband applications such as video conferencing over LTE TDD.

In the recent past, Ericsson has partnered with Telia Sonera, Samsung and Verizon for successful 4G LTE trials worldwide.

Of the estimated 3.4 billion people who will have broadband by 2014, about 80 percent will be mobile broadband subscribers — and the majority will be served by High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) and Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks. Operators who have missed the 3G race have also vowed to actively pursue LTE, and speculations are also on that BWA winners will use some of the extra spectrum for LTE and 4G trials.

berylm@cybermedia.co.in