April 06, 2009, 8:46 PM — Motorola Inc. conducted dozens of test drives of LTE wireless technology near the Las Vegas Convention Center during the International CTIA Wireless show last week, displaying video data at speeds of more than 10Mbit/sec. to monitors inside a moving van with only a few minor disruptions.
The only technical problem during one 10-minute test drive with two reporters occurred when the video data was handed off from one antenna to another as the van passed from one sector to another each served by an antenna. In that instance, the live video feed from a Motorola booth inside the convention center broke up for about three seconds.
What resulted were broken images and "tiling," which is common when a video signal is broken even for a moment. Ed Sawma, manager of LTE marketing for Motorola, said the handover between the antennas to the moving van was probably about 200 milliseconds to 300 milliseconds, resulting in a three-second disruption in the video image.
But Sawma said engineers are working to eliminate the imperfections and that commercial grade LTE shipments are expected later this year.
The test showed recorded video from Web sites as well as live feeds from Motorola's CTIA booth. Fewer technical problems with an Internet video feed are likely because of buffering software built into the Internet video by content providers, Sawma said.
Sawma also browsed the Internet over the a laptop switching quickly from page to page. The laptop was connected via Wi-Fi to a router in the van, which was in turn connected to LTE.
In a final test, he showed how the Archos 5 Internet Media Tablet from Archos Inc. could function over LTE, using the intermediary Wi-Fi connection. Motorola officials described the Archos 5, a touchscreen device that's 5 x 3 x .5 inches and weighs about .5 pounds, as typical of the type of mobile wireless device that will connect to LTE.
"LTE will be all about video," said Fred Wright, senior vice president for cellular and WiMax at Motorola.
Sawma said the test drives showed "very fast response times," although one of the antennas, which wasd erected atop the convention center, should have been higher for ideal transmissions. Still, he said the results were better than in Barcelona, Spain, where test drives were conducted at the Mobile World Congress in February.
Most 3G cellular connections will offer 3Mbit/sec. to 5Mbit/sec. of speed, while the test showed speeds of 10Mbit/sec. to 15Mbit/sec. With ideal antenna locations, the speeds could be more than 25 Mbit/sec., Sawma said. He added that users might see double that 10Mbit/sec. performance with further enhancements before a full commercial rollout.
