14 DAY TRIAL // Telecommunications solutions provider Huawei and wireless carrier O2 UK has announced recently that successful completion of a live trial of Long Term Evolution network equipment. According to the two companies, they managed to reach a peak download rate of 150Mbps during the trial, which was performed in the Slough area, the headquarters of O2 in the UK.
As many of you might already know, O2's parent company, Telefonica, announced not to long ago plans to start the trials of 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) / System Architecture Evolution (SAE) technology in a series of markets around the world, and UK is one of them. Moreover, it seems that Huawei is the first of the LTE vendors selected by Telefonica for its worldwide 4G deployments that managed to implement a live trial LTE network.
Derek McManus, CTO of O2 UK, commented the following on the successful 4G LTE live testing: “We are pleased to collaborate with Huawei on this LTE trial, which will allow us to better understand this emerging technology and prepare us in offering our customers next generation mobile broadband services in the future.”
Additionally, we should mention the fact that Huawei is currently working with a wider range of carriers around the world on LTE trials. Moreover, according to recent reports, more than 50 operators around the globe already announced plans to deliver 4G networks based on this standard to their users, and 19 LTE networks are expected to be launched commercially during the next year.
Samuel Sun, managing director of Huawei UK, stated the following regarding the new achievement: “Huawei is very keen to be involved with the Telefonica O2 UK trials for LTE/SAE technology. We have demonstrated our state-of-the-art mobile technologies and capability to deliver on our promise. These trials will give an excellent reference to Telefonica O2 for the evaluation of LTE technology.”