Ericsson's new Dot base station to support 4G

Ericsson launched a palm-sized mobile phone base station called Dot on Thursday and the company said the system will support the Chinese TD-LTE 4G technology in the future.

Sweden-based Ericsson is set to redefine the small cell market with the introduction of its newest product- the Ericsson Radio Dot System. The world's No 1 telecom equipment vendor said in a Beijing news briefing that Dot will provide high-quality access to mobile broadband and voice services indoors.

At present, more than 70 percent of mobile traffic is generated indoors. However, there is no mainstream technology that can offer a complete and optimized solution to cost-effectively cover all building types and fulfill operator and user demands.

Whereas uncoordinated Pico/Fem and Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) were created for small and large environments, Dot is scalable for a wide range of building sizes.

Chang Gang, chief marketing officer of Ericsson China, said the Dot system is able to cover an area of between 600 square meters and 800 square meters. The newly unveiled product is scheduled to hit the global market in the second half of 2014.

Currently, Dot can only run on FDD-LTE and HSPA mobile networks. “If the Chinese telecom operator is willing, we will develop functions to help the Dot System support TD-LTE 4G wireless network,” Chang said.