Alcatel-Lucent announced recently that it managed to successfully complete the first LTE data call in the world on the 800 MHz "European Digital Dividend" (EDD) spectrum band. Moreover, the call has been made on a live network and was completed during the last month on the company's LTE end-to-end solutions center in Stuttgart, Germany.

According to Alcatel-Lucent, the call included the transmission of high-definition video streaming over-the-air with the use of the company's commercial infrastructure platforms as well as of its prototype mobile devices. It seems that the 800 MHz spectrum band is expected to see a frequency auction in Germany in the second quarter of the next year.

“This is a major breakthrough on our path to become the first vendor to offer a commercial solution for the 'Digital Dividend` spectrum,” said Ken Wirth, President of Alcatel-Lucent's LTE/4G Solutions. “Our goal is to quickly and effectively support operators in their plans to further enhance the availability of broadband services all over the region, so we adapted our LTE solution to the 800 MHz frequency band quite early on and we are now working with customers on field trials.”

According to the telecommunications solutions provider, the roll-out of Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks on the 800MHz spectrum bands is expected to prove a great option for carriers. The company suggests that the technology will enable wireless operators to cover a wider range of rural areas with a smaller number of cell sites. A wide range of carriers around the world already announced plans to move towards LTE, which means that the solution might prove a very welcome one.

Alcatel-Lucent has already deployed a live 2.6GHz LTE network in Stuttgart and also rolled-out another one at Velizy, in France. All of the company's 2.6GHz radio modules are CE marked, which means that the shipments of 2.6GHz LTE base stations have been already cleared for take off in the European Economic Area (EEA).