South Korea's LG U+ has completed a trial of LTE over unlicensed spectrum (LTE-U), achieving peak data rates of an impressive 600Mbps.
The operator used the 5.8-GHz unlicensed band, typically used for Wi-Fi, for the world-first trial, Business Korea reported.
A 60MHz block of 5.8-GHz spectrum was combined with 20MHz of licensed LTE spectrum via carrier aggregation.
On the strength of the trial, LG U+ plans to expand the use of the 5.8-GHz band to cover 80MHz for a total download speed of 750Mbps.
LG U+ developed and completed the first demonstration of LTE-U technology in October last year. This trial builds on that development.
The first smart devices capable of supporting LTE-U are expected to be commercially available by the second half of 2016 - as long as opposition to the use of shared spectrum bands for LTE does not prevail.