With North American wireless operators increasingly planning toshift their networks to Long Term Evolution (LTE), China-basedequipment maker Huawei has upgraded its LTE laboratory in Richardson,Texas. Operators and industry partners in North America are now able tofurther explore the potential of LTE technology and experience Huawei’slatest LTE solutions, the company said in a news release.
Initially established with prototype equipment last fall, thefacility has been upgraded to fully support commercial product releasesfor North America. The lab recently implemented Huawei’s firstcommercial LTE solution release targeted at operators in the UnitedStates and Canada. Additionally, local research and development teamsare now able to work more closely with North American operators torigorously test LTE systems before delivery.
The lab is equipped with Huawei’s SingleRAN DBS3900 eNodeB, USN 9810unified service node, UGW 9811 unified gateway, M2000 elementmanagement system and the latest versions of commercial software.Huawei’s industry-leading SingleRAN solution incorporatessoftware-defined radio technology to support CDMA/LTE and UMTS/LTEdual-mode operation, which Huawei first demonstrated in AWS spectrum atCTIA Wireless 2008.
The announcement came the same day as Japan’s NTT DoCoMo said that it will launch an LTE-based data service in December, 2010. This week Rogers Communications said it will start boosting its wireless data network to use HSPA Plus technology, which is a stepping stone to LTE. Meanwhile in the U.S. Verizon and AT&T continue preporatory work on their LTE networks.
