China Telecom and Nokia Networks have announced they have completed the world's first FDD-TDD carrier aggregation using a commercial user device chipset.
The companies achieved a peak download speed of 260 Mbps by aggregating 20 MHz of 1.8-GHz FDD spectrum and 20 MHz from the 2.6-GHz TD-LTE band.
FDD spectrum contributed 160 Mbps to the total speed, with TDD contributing the remainder.
A user device chipset produced by Marvell was used for the trial, indicating that FDD-TDD carrier aggregation is closer to the commercial deployment stage.
The demonstration comes days after China Telecom and rival China Unicom were granted approval to expand their hybrid FDD/TDD LTE network trials to 40 cities from the current 16.
Nokia separately announced it has launched a product offering to give the world's remaining Wimax operators a direct upgrade path to LTE-Advanced.
The vendor has launched the first 3.5-GHz carrier-aggregation capable TD-LTE radio, and is adding new LTE-Advanced functionality.
“Wimax operators have invested heavily in infrastructure and spectrum but face declining revenues. Given the significant progression of TD-LTE in the last few years, they are eager to upgrade their legacy network.” Infonetics principal analyst Stéphane Téral, commented.
“Migration to TD-LTE will give Wimax operators access to the LTE bandwagon and generate more revenues via support for the latest smartphones and tablets from major vendors.”