Ericsson Mobile Platforms S41

Year: 2008
Prototype level: Platform
Codename: Berta

Overview

Berta was one of Ericsson Mobile Platforms’ earliest attempts to put LTE technology into something resembling a mobile handset. Developed while LTE was still being defined and before commercial LTE phones existed, the prototype was built to demonstrate that the new radio technology could work in a compact, portable device rather than only in laboratory equipment.

The Berta prototype was demonstrated publicly by Ericsson in 2008, at a time when the LTE specification was still being completed. Ericsson reported download speeds of up to 140 Mbps, an impressive figure for a handheld device at the time. Because the LTE standard was still evolving, parts of the implementation were proprietary Ericsson technology, including both the hardware and the LTE interface.

Berta was never intended to become a consumer phone in this form. Like Ericsson’s other technology prototypes, its purpose was to prove the underlying technology, provide a platform for testing and demonstrate complete end-to-end LTE solutions. The hardware was consequently much larger and less refined than a commercial handset would need to be. The prototype nevertheless represented an important milestone: a physical demonstration that LTE could move from the network laboratory into a genuinely portable device.

The name Berta would later become associated with Ericsson’s early LTE handset demonstrations, but the surviving prototype is best understood as a piece of development hardware from the period when Ericsson was still working out how LTE would eventually fit into mobile devices.