In the latest LTE-Advanced milestone, Ericsson and Qualcomm have revealed they have completed the first inter-company interoperability testing of LTE Category 9 connectivity.
The tests achieved downlink speeds of up to 450 Mbps, via Ericsson's LTE-Advanced network infrastructure and commercially available software, and using Qualcomm's LTE-Advanced modem.
It involved the aggregation of up to three carriers for a total of up to 60 MHz of spectrum.
“Inter-company vendor interoperability testing between network and device is key to enabling large-scale commercial deployments,” Ericsson head of radio product management Thomas Norén said.
He said the company plans to continue to work with Qualcomm on further developments in the LTE ecosystem.
The tests come a month after Nokia and Qualcomm completed interoperability tests of three-band carrier aggregation involving 40 MHz of total spectrum, and five months after Huawei and LG U+ completed a live field-trial of tri-band CA.
Huawei and LG U+ first demonstrated a three-band carrier aggregation technology at Mobile World Congress 2014 in February.