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July 14, 2010

Alvarion Extends Support to the Upcoming TD-LTE Standard

By Ashok Bindra
TMCnet Contributor

Israeli broadband wireless access (BWA) vendor Alvarion (News - Alert) Ltd. is expanding its 4G offerings to include time division duplexing (TDD). In short, the manufacturer said that it is expanding its product line to support the TD-LTE (News - Alert) standard in order to offer an open and flexible platform for TDD-based 4G networks. Alvarion expects to engage in TD-LTE field trials in the first quarter of 2011 and will incorporate TD-LTE support into its 4Motion infrastructure portfolio.

According to Alvarion, the trend in wireless spectrum availability around the globe supports the fact that unpaired TDD spectrum will have an even greater role to play for broadband wireless deployments in the future. TDD spectrum uses unpaired channels that combine the uplink and downlink, and split resources on the basis of real-time demand. TDD spectrum is relatively plentiful, cost effective and creates attractive opportunities for broadband applications over this spectrum, said Alvarion.

In a statement, Eran Gorev, president and CEO, said “Our primary aim is to offer tailored broadband wireless solutions which can also evolve along with customers’ needs. Our development effort over the past two years has been designed to accommodate the support for TD-LTE as a natural extension of our existing solution.”

“We are moving full speed ahead both with our ongoing WiMAX (News - Alert) development to bring the latest 802.16e enhancements, as well as incorporating TD-LTE into our platform. This approach allows our customers to offer the latest 4G features currently available and will also enable them to leverage the LTE device ecosystem as it evolves,” noted Gorev.

As the level of support grows, TD-LTE is seen as a threat to WiMAX, according to market research firm ABI Research. TD-LTE is an alternative technology that is championed by China Mobile (News - Alert) and Qualcomm. It can operate on the same bandwidth as existing WiMAX networks. Thus, if this technology proves successful, you could see several WiMAX operators migrating to the LTE standard, predicted the research firm.
 

Ashok Bindra is a veteran writer and editor with more than 25 years of editorial experience covering RF/wireless technologies, semiconductors and power electronics. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Patrick Barnard


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