Nokia Siemens Networks claims world’s first LTE call

Finnish telecom equipment vendor Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) claims to have made the world’s first voice call using Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology. The company said the call was conducted at its research and development centre in Ulm, Germany, using its Flexi Multiradio base station, which runs software fully compliant to the 3GPP Rel.8 (March 2009 baseline) LTE standard. ‘This call is a significant landmark in building and strengthening our entire LTE ecosystem and shows our commitment to the technology,’ said Marc Rouanne, head of NSN’s Radio Access business unit, adding: ‘We see customers adopting LTE along differing timelines and we stand ready to meet the needs of early adopters of LTE as well as operators with extended migration paths from 3G/HSPA+ to LTE.’ The first commercial LTE services are expected to launch by the beginning of 2010, with Norwegian cellco NetCom announcing its intention to initiate commercial services by then on the back of successful trials conducted in Oslo this past summer. Additionally, fellow Norwegian mobile operator Telenor and Swedish cellco TeliaSonera are also trialling the technology with a view to commercial launches in early 2010.