Tests show LTE hits peak data rates

Nokia announced that the LTE/SAE Trial Initiative (LSTI), made up of a group of companies that includes Ericsson, Nokia and Vodafone, said its LTE tests have met goals for physical-layer throughput to both fixed and mobile users. The technology met the peak data rates testing both single-antenna and multiple-antenna radios in a lab and in the field, according to the group. The peak data rates for LTE, which is expected to become commercial in 2010, are 100 Mbps on the downlink and 50 Mbps on the uplink. Of course we all know that real-world throughput will be much less, say 10 Mbps? That's still pretty good. However, a new Unstrung Insider report says one of the biggest hurdles LTE will have to overcome is lack of spectrum to deploy it. Not including spectrum already allocated for mobile communications, the report finds that an additional 1 GHz of spectrum needs to be found for future mobile communications technologies. The LTE radio systems can run on bandwidth ranging from 1.25 MHz to 20 MHz. Of course, the more bandwidth available, the faster the system will run.

LSTI also announced some new members of the initiative, which includes China Mobile, Huawei, LG Electronics, NTT DoCoMo and Samsung.

For more about the LSTI LTE trials and the hurdles to LTE:
- read this article [1] from IDG News Service
- check out this report [2] from Unstrung

Related articles:
Verizon picks LTE? Not so fast [3] 
LTE/SAE group to demo 100Mbps mobile broadband [4]