Long Term Evolution
This product in within the scope of Ericsson's purchase of substantially all of Nortel's CDMA business and LTE assets within North America. Go to the CDMA/LTE Divestiture page to learn more about this agreement.
Although 3G technologies deliver significantly higher bit rates than 2G technologies, there is still a great opportunity for wireless service providers to capitalize on the ever-increasing demand for "wireless broadband" and take advantage of the technology innovation that improves the economics of deploying mobile broadband networks. Consequently, there is an expanding revenue opportunity from a growing pool of consumers and business professionals who are demanding the same experience and applications that they enjoy on a fixed wireline connection over wireless -- anywhere, any content, stationary or mobile. The solution is LTE, (3GPP Long Term Evolution), the next-generation network beyond 3G. In addition to enabling fixed to mobile migrations of Internet applications such as Voice over IP (VoIP), video streaming, music downloading, mobile TV and many others, LTE networks will also provide the capacity to support an explosion in demand for connectivity from a new generation of consumer devices tailored to those new mobile applications.
What is it?
An evolution from 3GPP GSM and WCDMA
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LTE is the natural evolution of 3GPP GSM and WCDMA networks. It is also an evolution candidate for 3GPP2 CDMA networks. Efforts are underway to harmonize the standards. LTE itself is a new paradigm in access, with a new modulation technique, OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex), and antenna technology, MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output).
OFDM splits the information into multiple narrowband subcarriers, allowing each of them to carry a portion of the information at a lower bit rate, which makes OFDM a very robust modulation, particularly in multipath scenarios, like urban areas.
MIMO technology creates several spatial paths on the air interface between the network and the subscriber; so these paths can carry the same or different streams of information, allows an increase in either the coverage (due to higher Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) at the receiver) or the user data throughput.
Why do I need it?
Affordable mass market wireless broadband
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LTE, combining OFDM and MIMO, will provide on 2 to 5 times greater spectral efficiency than the most advanced 3G networks, reducing the cost per bit and allowing better economics for operators and end users.
The result is affordable mass market wireless broadband services that will boost Operator profitability. Faster downloads, video sharing, true Mobile TV with more channels and enhanced quality are just some examples of applications that will benefit from LTE's greater performance.
How can I do it?
A new paradigm in access
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LTE comes hand in hand with SAE (System Architecture Evolution), an evolution of the Core Network towards a flat, packet only, all-IP based architecture. In SAE, the network is composed of only two node types, the Base Station or eNodeB (evolved NodeB) and the AGW (Access Gateway). This architecture enhancement reduces the latency of the network (in the range of 10-20 msec round trip, an improvement of 50-200% when compared to the most advanced 3G networks), required to provide real-time applications, like VoIP or on-line interactive gaming. It lowers total cost of ownership as fewer network nodes will need to be installed and managed. Nortel can also provide cable reduction technology and integrated backhaul solutions to minimize the total cost of ownership of the network.
Nortel is delivering leading IMS Solutions for revenue generating applications to run on this true broadband access technology. As a matter of fact Nortel has already achieved several industry firsts with IMS VoIP live services running on top of 4G access including handover between VoIP on 4G systems and 2G cellular, in both directions, featuring Voice Call Continuity (VCC).
- Video
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T-Mobile International and Nortel Long Term Evolution Trial
This video highlights Nortel's LTE leadership and demonstrations captured from the live T-Mobile International Trial network in their headquarters in Bonn, Germany.
Watch the video of Nortel's LTE live air drive demo.
- In the News
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T-Mobile demonstrates the future of network technology at CeBIT
Videoconferencing with high-resolution images, Entertain from T-Home in top quality, fast online games – and all of it in and from a van on the go: T-Mobile is demonstrating the performance capabilities of LTE technology in the show-case at CeBIT 2009.
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T-Mobile extends leadership in Next Generation Mobile Networks with world-first demonstrations at Mobile World Congress
T-Mobile is demonstrating next generation mobile communications or NGMN (Next Generation Mobile Networks) using LTE (Long Term Evolution) techno-logy at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The network used in this test was established by Nortel and consisted of a multi-cell end-to-end Nortel network. LG Electronics terminals were used in the vehicle.
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- Literature
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- Demo
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- Podcast
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This two-part podcast provides an overview of LTE and a discussion on new experiences LTE will enable. Additionally, traffic capacity benefits are discussed as well as a comparison with other technologies.
Listen to Part 1
Listen to Part 2