NSN claims that they did industry’s first indoor implementation of LTE. This was done by NSN in cooperation with China Mobile Communications Corporation (China Mobile).
The idea was to show how to create excellent indoor coverage for future mobile broadband by using LTE. LTE base station in this case can be truly called Femtocell. This coverage will be widely used by subscribers in future, because "the majority of mobile broadband capacity will be consumed inside homes and offices where coverage is typically lower than outdoor spaces,” said Huang Xiaoqing, General Manager of China Mobile Research Institute.
Research team of Nokia Siemens Networks’ Beijing have demonstrated a live streaming video downlink application using a compact experimental Femtocell prototype in China Mobile’s Research Institute laboratory. The demonstration achieved throughputs which exceed the typical xDSL speed currently possible via residential broadband connections.
The main question, that I have here - which technology to use as IP backhaul for such Femtocells? The main purpose of outdoor LTE is to bring new range of access speeds to customers - speeds that can't be achieved by any of cable technologies at the moment. Plus you're getting mobility - the ability to move where you want and when you want. In case of Femtocell you'll get good coverage inside buildings, but not the speed of LTE (which is main advantage of new technology, as for me), because cell will give the speed of backhaul connection and nothing more.
Also, I suspect that for a long time we're going to have handsets (and other types of access devices) with support of both technologies - 3G and LTE. 3G Femtocells are already available and ready to become very popular in next few years (at the moment vendors, like Ubiquisys, are preparing for upsurge in Femto market). So it looks like this demo is only to show for other vendors and potential customers - "see, we did first LTE Femtocell". My congratulations to NSN - this is great, but it will take years for us to understand the great value of this moment.
You can read official press-release here.
About Nokia Siemens Networks
Nokia Siemens Networks is a leading global enabler of telecommunications services. With its focus on innovation and sustainability, the company provides a complete portfolio of mobile, fixed and converged network technology, as well as professional services including consultancy and systems integration, deployment, maintenance and managed services. It is one of the largest telecommunications hardware, software and professional services companies in the world. Operating in 150 countries, its headquarters are in Espoo, Finland.
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