Nokia Siemens says makes first LTE call

Telecom equipment maker Nokia Siemens Networks said on Thursday it has made the world's first call using next generation LTE mobile technology. The call was made at the company's research and development site in Ulm, Germany, using a commercial base station and fully standard-compliant software, Nokia Siemens said. All telecom equipment vendors are rushing to sell LTE networks to operators as the overall equipment market is shrinking amid fierce price battles and due to operators' slowing investments. First LTE services will be opened later this year, with mass deployments in 2010, Nokia Siemens said. The world's telecom carriers are lining up infrastructure vendors as they prepare to launch LTE technology, which will enable faster uploads and downloads of movies, music and other data to mobile devices. Nokia Siemens has built up a good position, selling LTE-ready base stations-which can be upgraded with just new software-to some 80 operators around the world.