March 19, 2014

With the ever increasing number of devices on increasingly overloaded networks, practical ways to relieve mobile communication traffic while maintaining speed and efficiency are more relevant now than ever before. In response to this, the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) has succeeded in developing a specially made smartphone that can operate in TV whitespace with LTE (Long Term Evolution) technology.

This new smartphone incorporates two SIM slots, one for the NICT developed LTE system for TV whitespace and the other for commercial LTE networks. Using software, the phone selects and smoothly switches between the LTE systems, which are based on 3GPP standard release 8. Standby times are 290 hours for TV whitespace and 440 hours for normal LTE networks. The phone also features a talktime of more than 10 hours.

“The smartphone we developed realizes a TDD LTE system with an expanded frequency range to include bands from 470MHz to 710MHz,” said Dr. Kentaro Ishizu, senior researcher of the whitespace project. “It’s lightweight and handheld for portability, has the same functions as the latest products now on the market, and its standby and talktimes last long enough for commercial use.”

Field evaluation system setup for the specially developed smartphone>

“By combining this smartphone with whitespace database-connected base stations (eND-B) we have already developed, we can increase LTE spectrum without causing interference with incumbent systems in the TV band, which means we can use the spectrum more efficiently and effectively,” said Dr. Hiroshi Harada, director of NICT’s Smart Wireless Laboratory. “We believe our development of this smartphone will contribute to the global development of LTE systems that utilize TV whitespace.”