Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) has begun shipping its Long Term Evolution (LTE) compatible Flexi Multimode Base Station hardware. By the end of this year, NSN said it will be delivering the hardware to more than 10 major operators in Asia, Europe and North America.

Only a software upgrade will be needed to achieve full LTE functionality and that will be available in the second half of 2009.

At last month’s WiMAX World, NSN reported that its base station was being tested by Sprint and Clearwire.