In a press release today, Nokia-Siemens Networks has announced the availability of base stations and cell site equipment built around preliminary LTE standards which will work with AWS spectrum on the 700Mhz and 1700Mhz bands.
The intent of the announcement is twofold: Provide spectrum winners such as Verizon and T-Mobile USA with possible equipment that can be purchased and implemented immediately in order to facilitate the long term transition from CDMA2000 and W-CDMA respectively, and gaining the competitve advantage over other wireless equipment manufacturers.
The current LTE equipment being offered for sale to prospective carriers is based on preliminary specifications known as Long Term Evolution System Architecture Evolution and the transitional standard known as Internet High Speed Packet Access, otherwise known as W-CDMA-IHSPA or pre LTE.
The solution is being touted as a complete end to end solution consisting of the Flexi Multimode Base Station, Mobility Management Entity, and the System Architecture Evolution Gateway, which is an all IP-based platform designed to be upgraded to the complete LTE standard via a simple software upgrade in the future.
