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Operators shackled to GSM, so Huawei ties GSM to LTE

Base station test on Vodafone test range demos spectrum coexistence

Huawei and Vodafone have run a trial in Spain that demonstrated GSM and LTE transmissions co-existing on the same spectrum.

The idea behind Huawei's GL DSS (GSM-LTE dynamic spectrum sharing) is to let operators roll out their shiny new LTE infrastructure without restricting the spectrum available to the (currently) larger installed base of GSM users.

At the same time, the outfit claims the technology also gets a 50 per cent spectrum efficiency lift for LTE.

“Several operators, including Vodafone, currently hold bandwidths of 20 MHz at 1.8 GHz, of which 10 MHz is used for LTE and the rest for high GSM traffic”, Huawei says in the canned statement about the test.

Huawei and Voda used the latter's Mobile Access Competence Center in Spain for the trail.

High points of the GL DSS technology are real-time interference scheduling, priority for GSM voice users in heavy traffic periods, and better LTE throughput (compared to fixed spectrum allocation deployments). The claimed 50 per cent improvement in LTE efficiency, Huawei claims, gives it what amounts to 15 MHz more available spectrum “with limited impact to GSM services.”

In other words: the GL DSS technology seems to let the base station look at the terminals trying to log in – and their traffic – and allocate its GSM and LTE radio resources accordingly.

The GL DSS technology under test was deployed in a Huawei SRC (single radio controller) base station, and doesn't rely on changes to users' phones or data devices. It is, at the moment a Huawei-only solution, rather than a standard. ®

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