Altair Semiconductor has announced that its chipsets will power the AVM FRITZ!Box LTE being used during O2's upcoming digital dividend and 2.6GHz friendly user trials in Germany, scheduled to begin immediately. 

 O2's digital dividend (Band 20, 800MHz) and 2.6 GHz (Band 7) trial will allow residents of rural areas in Germany with O2 coverage to receive an LTE WiFi FRITZ!Box router from AVM and receive free service from O2 for six months.

Digital Dividend is UHF spectrum that, until now, has been used for analog television broadcasting. As greater numbers of consumers switch from analog to digital televisions, this spectrum has become available for use in carrying mobile broadband signals. 2.6GHz (Band 7) is the primary spectrum used for urban deployments.

"As one of the largest manufacturers of DSL Integrated Access Devices (IAD) in Europe we wanted to be sure to work with a company able to effectively support the rigorous demands of this LTE trial," said Dr. Gerd Thiedemann, Head of Product Management at AVM. "Altair's FourGee-3100/6200 chipset, operating at digital dividend 800 Mhz and 2.6GHz,  allowed AVM to integrate LTE, Wireless LAN and voice into one powerful device, the FRITZ!Box LTE.”

Beyond the Digital Dividend and 2.6GHz spectrum bands, Altair's multi-band capabilities allow the devices it powers to seamlessly operate in every LTE frequency band allotted in Europe, an advantage that will become increasingly more important as European countries begin rolling out numerous LTE products over the coming year.