T-Mobile reveals Austrian LTE testbed
International carrier T-Mobile has unveiled what it claims is the world’s first multi-user LTE test network “with mobility” in the Austrian city of Innsbruck. The German incumbent carrier worked with Chinese vendor Huawei to establish the network.
T-Mobile also claimed that the deployment, which uses the carrier’s 3G network as an infrastructure base, is the largest test network in Europe. It spans 60 cells and has been running since the beginning of July.
The company said that the trial network is designed to gather user feedback as well as to test the performance and robustness of the technology, although it did not say how many users are participating in the trial. T-Mobile said it is using new NGMN devices as part of the text network, which are capable of 50Mbps in both up- and downlink. Trial services include high speed file transfer and high quality video on demand.
“With this showcase we implemented a completely new generation of mobile network,” said Jim Burke, CTO at T-Mobile Austria. “Starting from remote ratio heads to broadband fibre to all sites with the lowest power consumption, these tests are paving the way to the customer experience of the future,” he added.
Austria is at the leading edge of European mobile data usage, with market leader Mobilkom Austria deriving one third of its revenues from mobile broadband services.
