Support for Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology continues with news today that the LTE/SAE Trial Initiative (LSTI) has announced the completion of a second round of tests confirming potential download speeds exceeding 100 Mb/s. Using MIMO antennas, the group claims it can also push speeds beyond 300 Mb/s. Formed last summer, LSTI consists of 17 members, including operators and manufacturers such as China Mobile, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Ericsson and Samsung. Last month Mobile Business Briefing reported that the standard’s radio access network Requirements and Architectural documentation has been approved by the 3GPP, and all remaining work – focused on the core network – is expected to be completed this year. An all-IP next-generation mobile standard, LTE is intended to enable data rates many times faster than the high-speed mobile broadband connectivity already offered by today’s HSPA networks, and will also provide greater network capacity for operators.

Meanwhile industry reports suggest that WiMAX technology, a potential rival to LTE, has also experienced progress. According to Unstrung, the frequency division duplex (FDD) version of mobile WiMAX has taken a step toward approval by the WiMAX Forum. Current mobile WiMAX technology is based on time division duplex (TDD), but available TDD spectrum is limited. The report states that having an FDD version would make the mobile broadband air interface eligible to be deployed in much more of the world’s spectrum. Unstrung claims that a recommendation for an FDD profile for three different frequency bands was made to the WiMAX Forum’s technical working group at a meeting last week.