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Motorola plans to include both current and new frequency bands in the company’s first commercial release of LTE in 2009, including the700 MHz spectrum recently auctioned off by the FCC.
The decision to include 700MHz and 2.6GHz solutions in the package will allow network operators to increase coverage and capacity. The timing for commercialization of products will be based upon a combination of general fourth-generation spectrum licensing trends globally as well as individual customer demands.
Long Term Evolution technology was developed within the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, or 3GPP, standards organization. LTE is designed to deliver mobile data networks with higher speed and throughput performance, lower latency, global roaming, and improved efficiency.
Verizon and Vodafone, the joint owners of Verizon Wireless, currently use incompatible mobile wireless technologies, and plan trials for the LTE technology in 2008. Verizon plans to use LTE technology as a path to its 4G wireless services. Trial suppliers include Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia Siemens Networks and Nortel Networks.
“We believe deploying LTE in the 700MHz band is mandatory to meet the needs of wireless carriers in the U.S. market as well as a number of other countries globally,” Darren McQueen, Motorola vice president for Wireless Broadband Access Technologies, said in a statement.
McQueen added that there is also a demand for LTE in the 2.6GHz spectrum band to meet the needs of GSM carriers that have already secured the spectrum in the global market. Motorola also announced that its LTE solution would support the future LTE TDD (Time Division Duplex) variant to meet the need of operators with TDD spectrum holdings.
Motorola’s LTE base station solution comprises its common platform site controller unit to be shared between WiMax 802.16e and LTE plus a variety of radio head solutions to meet specific customer requirements.
“Leveraging our WiMax TDD infrastructure, we have designed a common LTE platform that is capable of both LTE Frequency Division Duplex … and TDD, offering global operators the simplicity and economies of scale across markets,” McQueen said.