Cambridge, UK—December 18, 2008— Aeroflex today announced it has secured a series of sales for the recently launched TD-LTE version of its market-leading TM500 test mobile from various leading suppliers of cellular mobile infrastructure equipment in China. These orders for the new TM500 TD-LTE further strengthen Aeroflex's position as the leading provider of test mobiles for LTE, HSPA and WCDMA.

“With the forthcoming TD-LTE lab and field trials in China, we are seeing operator interest in the technology increasing rapidly,” said Ross Broadhurst, Aeroflex’s product manager for the TM500 TD-LTE test mobile. “Demanding timescales have been set for the trials and the TM500 TD-LTE test mobile is seen as a vital tool for accelerating and supporting the development and test programs for TD-LTE. The TM500 TD-LTE provides early access to the latest 3GPP functionality long before the availability of real handsets as well as layered operation and a high degree of logging and control.”

The new TM500 TD-LTE’s extensive Layer 1, Layer 2 and higher layer test features make it an indispensable testing peer that provides complete visibility even into the lowest layers of the radio modem by generating the detailed diagnostic data needed for engineers to verify the required functionality and optimize network operation and performance. With support for MIMO, handover testing, 20MHz channel bandwidths and 300Mbit/s downlink data rates on UE CAT5, it will enable comprehensive development and test support of base station and network infrastructure for the next generation of Chinese mobile technology. The TM500 TD-LTE can co-exist in the same unit as the TM500 LTE-FDD protecting investment and maximizing test flexibility for engineers working on both standards.

About TD-LTE
TD-LTE is the Time Division Duplex version of LTE (Long Term Evolution). It is an evolution of the existing TD-SCDMA technology, which allows efficient allocation of downlink resource and opens up the unpaired spectrum available for LTE. LTE lies on the 3GPP GSM evolutionary path beyond 3G HSDPA/HSUPA and is designed to provide increased data speeds at a lower cost per data bit compared to 3G. It targets data rates in excess of 100Mbps over the downlink and 50Mbps over the uplink when operating in the 20MHz spectrum allocation, climbing to peak rates of 300Mbps in the downlink for the highest category UEs. LTE technology will also ensure high performance for speeds up to 120km/h and mobility support across the cellular network for speeds up to 350km/h. As well as higher data rates, wide-area coverage is also being targeted. The throughput, efficiency and mobility targets must be met for 5km cells through to 30km cells and up to 100km cells. Reduced latency is also being addressed with a target for data-plane latency less than 5ms in unloaded conditions with small IP packets.