December 17, 2009, Huawei, a leader in providing next-generation telecommunications network solutions for operators around the world, today announced a successful live trial of LTE (Long Term Evolutio

December 17, 2009, Huawei, a leader in providing next-generation telecommunications network solutions for operators around the world, today announced a successful live trial of LTE (Long Term Evolution) with Telefónica O2 UK, the first fully operational operator LTE trial in the UK. During the trial, a cell peak downlink rate of 150Mbps was achieved in the Slough area, the headquarters of O2 in the UK. A recent showcase also demonstrated real life case studies of future consumer demands on a mobile broadband LTE network, including high definition video streaming, mobile gaming, high speed file transfer and video conferencing.

Following the recent announcement made by Telefónica, O2′ s parent company, to commence trials of the new LTE/SAE (System Architecture Evolution) technology, Huawei is the first of Telefonica’ s trial LTE vendors to have successfully implemented a live trial LTE network. Huawei’s end-to-end LTE/SAE solution provides an All-IP, high speed, low latency and highly spectrum efficient mobile network, which greatly enhances the experience of mobile multimedia services.

Derek McManus, CTO of O2 UK, commented “We are pleased to collaborate with Huawei on this LTE trial, which will allow us to better understand this emerging technology and prepare us in offering our customers next generation mobile broadband services in the future.”

Samuel Sun, Managing Director of Huawei UK, said “Huawei is very keen to be involved with the Telefónica O2 UK trials for LTE/SAE technology. We have demonstrated our state-of-the-art mobile technologies and capability to deliver on our promise. These trials will give an excellent reference to Telefónica O2 for the evaluation of LTE technology.”

As the world’ s leading LTE/SAE provider, Huawei has now deployed 25 LTE/SAE networks with tier one operators located in Europe, North Amercia, Asia Pacific and the Middle East.

About Telefónica O2 UK

• Telefónica O2 UK Limited is a leading communications company for consumers and businesses in the UK, with 21 million mobile customers and 527,126 fixed broadband customers as at 30 September 2009.
• Telefónica O2 UK Limited is part of Telefónica Europe plc which is a business division of Telefónica S.A. and which owns O2 in the UK, Ireland, Slovakia, Germany and the Czech Republic, and has 46 million customers.
• In 2006 Telefónica Europe acquired Be*, the UK fixed broadband provider, and in October 2007 O2 launched its broadband service using the Be* network.
• O2 is the naming rights partner of The O2, the world-class entertainment venue.
• O2 was ranked highest in customer satisfaction for both UK mobile and fixed broadband customers according to the J.D. Power and Associates UK Mobile and Fixed Broadband Studies 2009.
• In February 2009 O2 became the first UK mobile operator to be officially certified with the Carbon Trust Standard in recognition of O2′ s commitment to reduce its carbon footprint and the 15% reduction in energy consumption achieved over the past three years.
• O2 was launched on 1 May 2002 and now has more customers than any other UK mobile network.
• O2′ s UK mobile network covers 99% of the UK’ s population. O2′ s 3G network covers over 80% of the UK population and is fully HSDPA-enabled, providing speeds of up to 3.6 Mbps for customers with an HSDPA-enabled device.
• Telefónica Europe also owns 50% of the Tesco Mobile and Tchibo Mobilfunk joint venture businesses in the UK and Germany.

For further press information about O2 go to www.o2.co.uk/news