SK Telecom has announced it has completed successful tests of five-band carrier aggregation (CA) over its commercial network.
The trial, conducted in conjunction with Samsung, used SK Telecom's spectrum in the 800-MHz, 1.8-GHz and 2.1-GHz band as well as two 2.6-GHz carriers.
SK Telecom also demonstrated the application of MIMO on its tri-band LTE-A CA network, which the operator is using to provide a 500Mbps “LTE-A Pro” service. The application of MIMO will give SK Telecom the capability of providing 900Mbps data speeds, the company said.
Applying 4X4 MIMO to a 20 MHz block of spectrum will allow users to download data at a maximum rate of 400Mbps per frequency band.
SK Telecom and Samsung are demonstrating this LTE-A Pro technology at Samsung's booth at Mobile World Congress 2017 this week, and plan to commercialize the technology within the first half of the year.
SK Telecom also announced it has demonstrated licensed assisted access (LAA) technology in LTE networks, in collaboration with Ericsson.
LAA combined licensed and unlicensed spectrum, and the companies said aggregating 80MHz of combined spectrum, combined with 4X4 MIMO, can achieve peak data rates of 1Gbps. The companies are also demonstrating this technology at MWC 2017.
“With continued advancement of UHD video and virtual reality technology, there is growing a need for faster mobile telecommunications services,” SK Telecom senior vice president and head of network technology Park Jin-hyo said.
“SK Telecom will pursue ceaseless innovations in not only 5G, but also in LTE-A Pro so as to provide our customers with the world’s best mobile experience.”