Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) said that it will conduct a regional trial of Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology in Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore in collaboration with Optus, Globe Telecom and Telkomsel, with an aim to optimise the resources used and gain better technical insights through knowledge sharing.
The trials, which are expected to commence in the first half of 2010, will take place over a period of 6 to 9 months. Six network vendors have been invited to participate in the LTE trials including Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei, NEC, Nokia Siemens Networks and ZTE.
According to SingTel, the trials will lay the groundwork to establish a LTE network to facilitate growth in the mobile broadband business for the SingTel Group. This network will also allow the Group to deploy new services across the region.
SingTel said that LTE base stations and core network equipment will be installed for field tests which will evaluate the features and end-to-end performance of the technology and will offer peak performance speeds of 340Mbps. The tests will be conducted for different scenarios and conditions, including different frequency bands and urban environments.
Lim Chuan Poh, CEO of SingTel International Group, said: LTE will open doors to new and more powerful mobile solutions that will transform the way our customers across the region live, work and play. The regional trials underscore SingTel’s commitment to offering our retail and enterprise customers more innovative services that are at the cutting-edge of technology.
With our footprint of regional associates serving 273 million customers in eight markets, we are in an excellent position to drive the adoption of LTE technology in the region and beyond.
