14 DAY TRIAL // Nokia Siemens Networks announced having managed to complete a drive test for the Orthogonal Sub Channel (OSC), supposed to double the voice capacity of GSM radio networks. According to the company, the test showed four calls being carried in one GSM radio timeslot, which marks an important GSM evolution step. The OSC innovation is meant to offer carriers a way to reduce cost during a drop in revenues per call minute.
“This successful demonstration opens up a profitable growth path for operators, evolving their networks to a new level of efficiency with minimized CAPEX and OPEX. This is made possible by a software upgrade to existing Flexi EDGE Base Station and Base Station Controller. OSC is fully interoperable with existing handsets, so it promises immediate cost saving for operators,” said Prashant Agnihotri, Head of GSM/EDGE product management, Nokia Siemens Networks.
Nokia Siemens Networks has added the OSC innovation to its lineup of sustainable and green products and solutions. According to the company, the Orthogonal Sub Channel can allow operators to increase their capacity while maintaining the same base station hardware, which also means that the networks could be extended with energy savings and lower CO2 emissions.
The maker demonstrated the OSC with four handsets that were using the same radio timeslot, while the quality of the call was not compromised. This was the first demonstration to use commercially available GSM handsets, and proved the leading position Nokia Siemens Networks has in the GSM/EDGE radio technology area. The company announced plans to make OSC available in 2010.
Nokia Siemens Networks provides GSM radio access networks that offer connectivity to more than 1.5 billion subscribers around the world. The manufacturer is currently a leader in EDGE when it comes to references and commercial deployments, and also contributed to the GSM/EDGE evolution in standardization, delivering new levels of performance to EDGE. The OSC innovation is another industry's first Nokia Siemens Networks brings to multiply radio performance, which adds to the first EDGE call in 2001, as well as to the first Dual Carrier EDGE Evolution call last year.