Clearwire's first LTE trial results are in: 90Mbps down, 30Mbps up
Yes, that's right: we said LTE, not WiMAX. The patron saint of WiMAX in the US has long toyed with the idea of switching over to the LTE technology path in the long term, and the results of its first live LTE trial -- based in Phoenix -- are looking pretty promising. Two configurations were tested, spanning both LTE's frequency- and time-division flavors; the TD trial ran with a total of 20MHz of spectrum and clocked peak downlink speeds of 50Mbps, while FDD pushed as high as 90Mbps down and 30Mbps up using 40MHz of spectrum in paired 20MHz chunks. That's a lot faster than the max 10Mbps down you can get with Clearwire's WiMAX network today, but then again, these trials are using a lot more spectrum -- twice as much in the TD configuration. Though these trial numbers never end up holding up in real-world use, it's notable that the company achieved these speeds while driving around, not sitting in a lab wearing white coats with the base station a few yards away. Question is, is this enough spectrum to run Engadget's servers on yet?*
*No, it's not.
[Thanks, Oussama]
