Advances in LTE carrier aggregation (CA) are coming thick and fast. Huawei and LG U+ yesterday announced they have completed the first field trial of tri-band CA over a commercial LTE network.
The companies aggregated LG U+'s LTE spectrum holdings in the 800-MHz, 2,100-MHz and 2,600-MHz bands, using 10 MHz each from the first two and 20 MHz from the third.
During the trial, the companies said the recorded a peak throughput of 300 Mbps. The companies first demonstrated a three-band carrier aggregation technology at Mobile World Congress 2014 in February, achieving peak speeds of 450Mbps.
Huawei said it expects the first smartphones to support three band carrier aggregation to be commercially available later this year.
Last month, the vendor conducted a trial of 300 Mbps LTE-A Category 6, which promises to support up to 40 MHz wideband carrier aggregation. NSN is also working on tri-band LTE CA technologies.
Hong Kong's CSL has already started upgrading its network to LTE-A Cat 6, while Singapore's M1 plans to introduce the technology by the end of the year.