LTE base station technology goes long range with Etelm global breakthrough

Thursday, 10 November 2016 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Cape Town, South Africa: ETELM, a leading manufacturer of advanced Mission Critical communications systems, has announced it is to unveil e-LBS, a new eNodeB LTE base station with the longest reach ever developed for PMR 4G technology worldwide, at AfricaCom in Cape Town, South Africa (15-17 November).

Part of ETELM’s 4G Linked portfolio, the e-LBS is a major breakthrough for LTE technology in Mission Critical applications such as ‘blue light’ services and will allow operators to boost their coverage areas from existing locations. ETELM, which has more than 35 years’ experience around the world, has developed the e-LBS specifically to be compatible with existing LTE infrastructure and is also producing technologies to embrace TETRA and PMR over a single core network.

“There is a massive market globally for a PMR optimised, long range LTE base station and we are very excited to be launching this new solution next week at AfricaCom,” said Pierre Minot, President of ETELM. “We have harnessed LTE’s multi-broadcast features to ensure the widest possible coverage area from our eNodeB cell, including group call functionality which is so vital to Mission Critical users. Our technology is the only one on the market which provides full integration between PMR and LTE, and is designed for Enterprise and Mission Critical LTE applications. It is ideal for operators looking to offer Enterprise solutions and extend geographic coverage of their commercial networks at the same time.”

The e-LBS currently operates in the 700 MHz band (with plans for other bands like 400 MHz and 2.6 GHz in the near future), allowing a greater broadband coverage, significantly outperforming typical macro-cell sizes of traditional eNodeB. It operates in a channel bandwidth of 1.4 MHz to 10 MHz and has full local or remote configuration and monitoring.

Minot continued: “The e-LBS base station is fully compliant with the LTE standard developed by 3GPP and so is compatible with any LTE Core network. We have already developed a range of PMR base station products that implement the LTE protocol stack, thereby allowing our radio sites to directly and seamlessly connect to any LTE backhaul. In the future all operators will probably use the LTE core network, so having the ability and flexibility to directly connect both narrowband and broadband base stations onto this international standard network offers major advantages to them for inter-technology communications.”

ETELM is dedicated to offering fully integrated, multi-technology solutions based on internationally recognised communications standards. ETELM will be exhibiting at this year’s AfricaCom on stand E4, which is part of the French Pavilion.