PARIS, France – January 14, 2013 – 4G chipmaker Sequans Communications S.A. (NYSE: SQNS) today announced the results of a technical trial conducted with leading Japanese mobile operator, Softbank, whereby Sequans’ AIR™ (advanced interference rejection) technology was tested to determine its value in mitigating interference in LTE networks. In the trial, which took place in a laboratory environment using commercial eNodeBs (base stations) commonly deployed in Softbank’s network, a receiver equipped with Sequans AIR was tested against a default receiver in both high mobility (vehicular) and low mobility (pedestrian) scenarios.  In both cases the Sequans AIR receiver delivered performance gains well above the default receiver, measured at 7dB in the low mobility case and 9dB in the high mobility case.

“These gains are meaningful to operators and their end users,” said Georges Karam, Sequans CEO.  “In the low mobility case, we showed that a Sequans AIR receiver can handle about five times as much interference as a non-Sequans AIR receiver, and for the high mobility case, the Sequans AIR receiver can handle about eight times as much interference. This translates into 10 Mbps higher throughput in the low mobility case and 14 Mbps higher throughput in the high mobility case.  In very high interference areas, such as might be encountered near cell edges, users can expect to get three times better throughput—this can mean users staying connected in conditions where other devices would be dropped from the network.”

Sequans AIR is a powerful interference mitigation algorithm whereby the receiver uses multiple antennas to form a receive beam toward the desired signal and spatial nulls toward interfering signals.  Sequans AIR is designed to work in any LTE network, regardless of eNodeB vendor, carrier frequency, channel bandwidth, or duplexing method.

“The Sequans AIR receiver demonstrated a clear gain over the default receiver across a wide range of interference levels,” said Karam.  “We have shown that operators who deploy Sequans AIR-equipped devices in their LTE networks are likely to have higher quality, higher performance LTE networks, and that their customers will enjoy a superior LTE experience.  This is especially important for operators like Softbank that are deploying very dense LTE networks where interference can significantly reduce network capacity.”

Sequans AIR is designed into Sequans’ StreamrichLTE platforms for high-end, feature-rich LTE devices.  Sequans AIR-equipped end user devices are expected to be available in LTE networks in the first part of 2013.