Motorola says it has completed the first successful packet-switch network handoff between CDMA EV-DO Rev. A and Long Term Evolution (LTE) technologies. Its demonstration included VoIP calls and streaming video.
Motorola says its handoff technique illustrates how service providers using CDMA-based networks can smoothly integrate broadband OFDMA and IP packet-based wireless broadband technologies like LTE into their networks, enabling the rollout of more interactive services such as HD mobile blogging and broadcasting, HD video-on-demand and online gaming. Motorola says it hopes its recent demonstration “encourages discussions” and highlights LTE’s potential for delivering multiple voice, video, data and wireless services.
“Technological enhancements such as the CDMA/EV-DO Rev. A to LTE handoff demonstration done by Motorola gives Alltel confidence that LTE is progressing in the right direction,” said Chris Smith, executive vice president of Network Services at Alltel, in a statement. “It is going to be incredibly important for LTE to interoperate with our existing technology as this is one of many key functionalities that will play a critical role in our final decision making.”
In Motorola’s demonstration, laptops and mobile devices were equipped with dual radio transceivers that support both CDMA/EV-DO Rev. A and LTE. As a device loses LTE connectivity, it automatically switches to EV-DO to ensure consistent streaming. The process is then reversed, and devices switch back to LTE when LTE connectivity is restored. While the LTE standards are still under development, Motorola said the handoff mechanisms employed in its demonstration leverage concepts that are part of the non-optimized handoff procedures in LTE core network SAE standard 3GPP TS 23.402.
