Telstra and Nokia Siemens Networks test LTE

Australian telco Telstra and equipment supplier Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) reveal they have achieved a world first in their quest to roll out LTE.

The network test run in rural Victoria by NSN and Telstra engineers between Mount Hope and Mount Burramboot achieved peak download speeds of 100Mbit/s and peak upload speeds of 31Mbit/s at a record breaking distance of 75.4km (46.85 miles) from the tower with a very respectable average throughput of 88.1Mbit/s down and 29.6M/bit up.

The network hardware used in the test was NSN’s commercially-available LTE-ready Flexi Multiradio Base Station and Evolved Packet Core (EPC) using a 20mhz chunk of the 2.6ghz spectrum set aside by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) for tests.
The receiving end was using pre commercial 3^rd party LTE USB dongles capable of 100Mbps downlink and 50mbps uplink with a 2×2 Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) Antenna setup.
While this test is impressive, however, it is nothing more than a best case demonstration and not the kind of speeds one would see on their future LTE handset.
Telstra is no stranger to setting world firsts on its mobile network. Its Next G network built between November 2005 and September 2006, with help from equipment supplier Erricsson, launched in October 2006 and has been the scene of many significant “world firsts,” such as being the first HSPA+ network, the first HSPA+ network to hit 21Mbit downstream (in December 2008) and the first network to hit 42Mbit downlink (in February of this year).
Telstra is also purportedly working with Huawei and Ericsson to test out various bits and bobs of their equipment, running LTE tests to see which vendor provides the best solution for Telstra in the future.