Sequans, the French wireless start-up, has got approval for its LTE baseband chip from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) which regulates, and is responsible for the development of, China’s wireless industry.
The approval means Sequans’ technology meets MIIT’s performance and interoperability requirements and is qualified for use in LTE networks in China.
Sequans’ LTE chips have been tested over several months by Huawei, and Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell.
“We are very pleased to have the MIIT stamp of approval which we believe signals our readiness for worldwide deployment,” says Georges Karam, Sequans CEO, “we have been working toward this ever since China Mobile asked us to provide technology for their first TD-LTE demonstration network at the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, and we look forward to participating in the large scale trials and future commercial deployments of China Mobile and other LTE operators who now have confirmation of the maturity of Sequans’ LTE solutions.”
The MIIT performance and interoperability testing was conducted in both the 2.3 and 2.6 GHz bands. The chip used in the tests was Sequans’ SQN3010 TD-LTE baseband chip. In addition to Alcatel-Lucent, and Huawei, Sequans has completed LTE interoperability testing on a private basis with Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks, ZTE and other network vendors.
The approval by the MIIT of Sequans’ SQN3010 solution follows the chip’s recent selection by NetComm, a device maker that recently announced it had been selected to provide TD-LTE devices for a national LTE network in Australia.