Telstra LTE trial: 100 Mbps wireless over 75km cell

Jun 18, 2010 2:56 PM
Filed under Networking

Nokia Siemens Networks trial impresses Telstra.

Telstra tower at Mt Burrumboot, Victoria	Testing the downlink speeds on Telstra's trial LTE connection.	Running HD video over the LTE mobile link.
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Telstra's LTE trial, which pitches three of the world's largest networking companies against each other in a proof-of-concept for a next generation data network, has racked up some impressive results, pushing a 100 Mbps wireless downlink to the edges of a 75 kilometre cell.

Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), vying for Telstra business against Next G incumbent Ericsson and Chinese manufacturer Huawei, impressed Telstra with a trial of a mobile cell based between Mount Hope and Mount Burrumboot in central Victoria.

Engineers from NSN and Telstra achieved a peak downlink throughput of 100 Mbps (average of 88.1 Mbps) and a peak uplink throughput of 30.99 Mbps (average of 29.6 Mbps). The trial used 20MHz of the 2.6 GHz mobile spectrum and 2x2 MIMO multiple antennae technology.

Michael Rocca, chief operations officer at Telstra, said range testing is critical for the future of this technology in regional Australia.

The trial used NSN's Flexi Multiradio Base Station and Evolved Packet Core (EPC), with pre-commercial LTE USB dongles from third-party vendors.

Telstra continues to test LTE solutions with Ericsson and Huawei.

4 comments in this discussion

"It's not completely clear from the story, but apparently the test was peak-to-peak, which is not exactly normal operating conditions. Add in the points made by singo79 and umbria, and in the ..."

By anonymous

Tags

telstra, lte, nokia siemens networks, nsn, mobile, network, 100mbps, 75km, 26ghz, ericsson, huawei

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Comments: 4

frogg11 Jun 18, 2010 8:26 PM	That's not bad. If they can get 75km range on the 2.6GHz frequency, I wonder what the range would be on a lower frequency like 850MHz.
singo79 Jun 18, 2010 8:45 PM	Big Deal! It is all well and good to say that they achieved these results in testing. But what will the true world result be, that is all that matters at the end of the day. This is just like Telstra, "oh hey everybody, we just achieved 100 Mbps (average of 88.1 Mbps) and a peak uplink throughput of 30.99 Mbps (average of 29.6 Mbps) during testing. Come on board and use our service and get 1/8th of that speed... if you're lucky". In fact I remember Telstra advertising that they were the fastest wireless ISP in Australia, offering customers "upto" 42Mbps. No one has ever come close to this and Telstra have even had to admitt that though they managed to achieve this in testing, customers are probably not going to be able to achieve this. Telstra need to stop boasting how good they think they are and start to deliver what they say they can. At least with FTTH you get the speed that they advertise and that you are paying for. ADSL is still pretty reasonable in this area, but it too is quite lacklustre in terms of delivering speeds greater then 8Mbit. Anything past 2Kms from your exchange and you are dreaming if you think you will get 20Mbps. The sooner the NBN is built and up and running the better!
umbria Jun 19, 2010 12:55 PM	100 Mbps peak, 88 average, and probably sub-50 minimum, shared over a 150 km diameter circle (though this test was probably unidirectional). That's just 1 Mbps each for 100 otherwise inaccessible homesteads and businesses. LTE will be one of the last-resort technologies for remote areas, but like Singo said, let's keep rolling out that fibre.
anonymous Jun 19, 2010 3:54 PM	It's not completely clear from the story, but apparently the test was peak-to-peak, which is not exactly normal operating conditions. Add in the points made by singo79 and umbria, and in the absence of more info, it's hard not to conclude that there may be a fair old dollop of spin in the air.