Nortel and LG Electronics say they have completed the first live air handover using the 4G mobile phone technology known as mobile LTE, or 3G long term evolution.

Engineers at Nortel's R&D Centre in Ottawa showed streaming HD video on an early LTE mobile device from LG Electronics while driving at speeds of 100 kms per hour and moving between coverage sites.

This brings LTE networks closer to commercial readiness, which is not expected before the end of 2009.

"Nortel, the LG-Nortel JV, and LG Electronics are accelerating the commercialization of LTE and showing consistent progress towards end-to-end interoperability to ensure alignment between infrastructure and devices," said Jinsung Choi, head of LG Electronics' mobile communications tech research lab. 

Handover of connections from one transmitter site to the next is a key feature for mobile networks to provide continuous coverage.

According to Richard Lowe, president of carrier networks, Nortel: "Today's telecommunications market is experiencing a massive trend towards Hyperconnectivity as more people and devices become connected."

"Operators can leverage the capabilities of LTE to allow subscribers to take their personalized versions of the web - their videos, their social networks, their music, their business tools - with them wherever they are," said Lowe.

The LTE demonstration was conducted over a network consisting of multiple cell sites and sectors served by Nortel's eNodeB LTE basestation and ATCA-based Access Gateway. The interoperability between Nortel's network and the device from LG Electronics is based on 3GPP Release 8 Standard.