Deutsche Telekom is working with Qualcomm on the first LTE Direct operator trial in Germany.
LTE Direct is a new device-to-device proximity technology that enables discovering thousands of devices and their services in the proximity of ~500m. The platform would be owned by the mobile operator. It uses licensed spectrum, allowing mobile operators to employ it as a way to offer a range of differentiated applications and services to users. It relies on the LTE physical layer to provide a scalable and universal framework for discovery and connecting proximate peers. Qualcomm Research, along with other 3GPP participants are leading the standardization of this feature in R-12.
Qualcomm said LTE Direct will function in a privacy-sensitive and battery-efficient way, allowing the discovery to be “Always ON” and autonomous, without drastically affecting the device battery life. Qualcomm predicts that LTE Direct will be the basis of many new services from from advertising, to SNS, Gaming, Education and more.
“The LTE Direct trial will be an excellent opportunity for the application developer community to demonstrate a number of unique applications and services working on LTE Direct,” stated Matt Grob, Qualcomm’s Chief Technology Officer.
The trial with Deutsche Telekom will use prototype devices from Qualcomm, Samsung, and LTE Direct enabled base stations. Standardization of LTE Direct in a 3GPP Release 12 is expected to be completed at the end of this year.
