Vodafone and Huawei Technologies have successfully tested a technology that lets LTE and GSM share the same frequencies, saving more spectrum. Huawei has impelemted the first GSM-LTE Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (GL DSS) trial with Vodafone Spain. GL DSS is able to improve LTE capacity by up to 50% through maximizing wireless spectrum utilization.

Competition is fierce for LTE spectrum resources globally, especially for bandwidths including 1.8GHz. Several operators, including Vodafone, currently hold bandwidths of 20MHz at 1.8GHz, of which 10MHz is used for LTE and the rest for high GSM traffic. Huawei selected Vodafone's Mobile Access Competence Center in Spain to jointly define this efficient spectrum management tool.

GL DSS lets Huawei's SRC (Single Radio Controller) give GSM a higher priority during periods of heavy traffic, ensuring that voice calls get though unharmed. But the SRC can also provide more room for LTE when users aren't making calls, allowing for better throughput, the vendor said on Tuesday.

This trial verified GL DSS performance in the Vodafone-Spain commercial network, with results showing that this solution can reach LTE capacity gains of up to 50%, making 15MHz effectively available for LTE with limited impact to GSM services.

Huawei and Vodafone didn't say when they expect GL DSS will become available to users.