Sofbank Mobile and Ericsson have conducted a field demonstration of LTE cooperative transmission control and coordinated scheduling. As a new feature in LTE radio base stations, it significantly improves cell-edge user performance by a factor of three. The trial network was located in Kumagaya, Saitama Prefecture, Japan, providing a combination of urban, suburban and rural radio environments.

SOFTBANK MOBILE and Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) have successfully demonstrated the benefits of a new feature, cooperative transmission control/coordinated scheduling in LTE radio base stations*, which significantly improves cell-edge user performance.

The test, conducted using commercially available LTE terminals, clearly demonstrated the strong potential of coordinated radio resource management functionality in LTE networks.

Coordinated scheduling avoids the severe interference that can otherwise be encountered at the cell edge between base stations that operate on the same frequency. By coordinating the base stations’ use of radio resources, it is possible to improve cell-edge user throughput by a factor of two or three, while simultaneously improving overall cell throughput.
Ericsson provided an industry-leading end-to-end LTE solution for the test, consisting of its latest multi-standard base station, the RBS 6000; its commercially proven Evolved Packet Core (EPC) network; operations support systems software; and professional services.

* SOFTBANK MOBILE developed this function as ECO-LTE – Enhanced COoperative transmission control on LTE.

About Ericsson

Ericsson is the world’s leading provider of technology and services to telecom operators. Ericsson is the leader in 2G, 3G and 4G mobile technologies, and provides support for networks with over 2 billion subscribers and has the leading position in managed services.The company’s portfolio comprises mobile and fixed network infrastructure, telecom services, software, broadband and multimedia solutions for operators, enterprises and the media industry. The Sony Ericsson and ST-Ericsson joint ventures provide consumers with feature-rich personal mobile devices.
Ericsson is advancing its vision of being the “prime driver in an all-communicating world” through innovation, technology, and sustainable business solutions. Working in 180 countries, more than 90,000 employees generated revenue of SEK 203.3 billion (USD 28.2 billion) in 2010. Founded in 1876 with the headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, Ericsson is listed on NASDAQ OMX, Stockholm and NASDAQ New York.