US : Motorola announced the first successful packet-switched network handoff between CDMA EV-DO Rev-A and Long Term Evolution (LTE) technologies in a demonstration with VoIP calls and streaming video.

Motorola's handoff technique illustrates how service providers using CDMA-based networks today can smoothly integrate broadband OFDMA and IP packet-based wireless broadband technologies like LTE into their network, enabling the roll-out of more interactive services like HD mobile blogging and broadcasting, HD video-on-demand and online gaming.

Designed to encourage discussions and trials of high-performance, mobile broadband networks, Motorola's demonstration highlights LTE's potential for delivering multiple voice, video, data and wireless services with transparent mobility between LTE and legacy networks using multi-mode LTE/CDMA/EV-DO Rev-A enabled devices.

The handoff also shows carriers interested in upgrading their networks the viability of deploying LTE while using their existing 3G network coverage and assets, without sacrificing service quality as consumers move between LTE and 3G network coverage zones. "Technological enhancements such as the CDMA/EV-DO Rev-A to LTE handoff demonstration done by Motorola gives Alltel confidence that LTE is progressing in the right direction," said Chris Smith, executive vice president, Network Services, Alltel.

"It is going to be incredibly important for LTE to inter-operate with our existing technology as this is one of many key functionalities that will play a critical role in our final decision making." In this Motorola demonstration, laptops and mobile devices are equipped with dual radio transceivers that support both CDMA/EV-DO Rev-A and LTE and are active during the packet handoffs. As a device loses LTE connectivity, it automatically switches to EV-DO to ensure consistent streaming without dropping IP packets.

The process is then reversed, and devices switch back to LTE when LTE connectivity is restored. While the LTE standards are still under development, the handover mechanisms employed in this demonstration leverage concepts which are part of the non-optimized handover procedures in LTE core network SAE standard 3GPP TS 23.402. The Motorola mobile devices and networks product and advanced technology teams collaborated to develop the necessary application software for the base station trial equipment and the mobile device used in the demonstration.