For the 1st time in the world, four calls have been carried in one GSM radio timeslot. This significant step in GSM evolution path was taken by Nokia Siemens Networks who completed a drive test for the Orthogonal Sub Channel (OSC), that doubles the voice capacity of GSM radio network.

“This successful demonstration opens up a profitable growth path for operators, evolving their networks to a new level of efficiency with minimized CAPEX and OPEX. This is made possible by a software upgrade to existing Flexi EDGE Base Station and Base Station Controller. OSC is fully interoperable with existing handsets, so it promises immediate cost saving for operators”, said Prashant Agnihotri, Head of GSM/EDGE product management, Nokia Siemens Networks.

The OSC innovation is also an important addition to Nokia Siemens Networks’ offering of sustainable and green products and solutions. With OSC, operators can gain more capacity from the same base station hardware, meaning fewer base station sites are needed in network rollouts and capacity extensions, which in turn saves energy and decreases the CO2 emissions.

The OSC demonstration was conducted as a drive test using four handsets sharing only one radio timeslot and without compromising the call quality. The demonstration with existing commercially available GSM handsets was the first one of its kind in the world. Nokia Siemens Networks is actively contributing in standardization on it and is planning to have OSC available in 2010.

GSM radio access networks delivered by Nokia Siemens Networks are connecting more than 1.5 billion subscribers globally. The newly demonstrated OSC innovation continues the list of industry firsts to multiply radio performance by Nokia Siemens Networks, including the first EDGE call in 2001 and the first Dual Carrier EDGE Evolution call in 2008.