Alvarion expands 4G offering to include TD-LTE

TEL-AVIV, ISRAEL: Alvarion Ltd, a leading provider of 4G networks in the Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) market, has outlined its strategy to provide the most open and flexible platform for 4G networks that use TDD (Time Division Duplexing) spectrum by formally announcing support for the upcoming TD-LTE standard, incorporating it into its industry leading 4Motion solution.

The company will continue to actively drive the WiMAX standardization activities, ecosystem development and state-of-the-art products that incorporate the latest features to meet global operators demand. In addition, Alvarion will enable customers to take advantage of an expanding device ecosystem based on the LTE standard in relevant frequencies as it develops. Alvarion expects to engage in TD-LTE field trials in the first quarter of 2011.

Insatiable demand for capabilities requiring broadband connectivity everywhere will continue to be addressed by a host of technologies. The trend in wireless spectrum availability around the globe supports the fact that unpaired TDD spectrum will have an even greater role to play for broadband wireless deployments in the future.

TDD spectrum uses unpaired channels that combine the uplink and downlink, and split resources on the basis of real-time demand. TDD spectrum is relatively plentiful, cost effective and creates attractive opportunities for broadband applications over this spectrum.

Alvarion has been instrumental in developing and commercializing broadband wireless solutions for various market segments for more than 15 years. The company has played a key role in creating the WiMAX standard based on an open, flexible architecture model and commercializing and optimizing solutions over the last decade. In particular, Alvarion was the first to offer a 4G platform using TDD spectrum in early 2006, and its 4Motion solution was designed to optimize networks using this spectrum.

“Our primary aim is to offer tailored broadband wireless solutions which can also evolve along with customers’ needs. Our development effort over the past two years has been designed to accommodate the support for TD-LTE as a natural extension of our existing solution,” said Eran Gorev, president and CEO of Alvarion.

“We are moving full speed ahead both with our ongoing WiMAX development to bring the latest 802.16e enhancements, as well as incorporating TD-LTE into our platform. This approach allows our customers to offer the latest 4G features currently available and will also enable them to leverage the LTE device ecosystem as it evolves.

Alvarion’s “open network” approach began a revolution in the wireless equipment market by creating an open all-IP flat architecture that introduced significant innovation in the industry. This network strategy lowers the cost of building the networks and allows high flexibility for service providers to build customized networks that fit their specific needs. Alvarion will bring a similar approach to its TD-LTE end-to-end solution.

“We have a strong heritage of driving standards to support open network architecture for both core and radio elements. Our extensive field experience in deploying TDD networks has helped our customers to continuously improve their total cost of ownership,” said Ofer Karp, president of Alvarion’s Wireless Business Division. “Over the past couple of years, we have added many elements to our current platform that allow us the flexibility and performance to develop multiple standards on a unified platform.”