Singtel and Ericsson have announced they have achieved a peak speed of 1.1Gbps during a trial of license-assisted access (LAA) technology in an Asia-Pacific first.
The trial in a Singtel laboratory combined key LTE technologies including 256 quadrature amplitude modulation (256 QAM), 4 x multiple-input-multiple-output (4x4 MIMO) and carrier aggregation in both licensed an unlicensed bands.
It involved combining two licensed carriers with three unlicensed spectrum bands in a unique 12-layer configuration that Singtel said promises to provide peak data rates of two to three times prevailing peak LTE speeds.
Specifically, the configuration combined four layers with 4x4 MIMO on a licensed spectrum band, two layers on the second licensed band, and two layers on each of the three unlicensed bands.
Singtel now plans to explore the feasibility of deploying the technology over its network. The operator's 4.5G LTE network already offers nationwide mobile data speeds of up to 500Mbps.
“We are very encouraged by this breakthrough in peak speeds. In Singapore, a large percentage of mobile traffic is generated indoors with more mobile customers browsing the web, streaming video and accessing cloud applications on the go,” Singtel CTO Mark Chong said.
“We are now in a position to deploy LAA technology to boost our LTE mobile capacity to meet increasing traffic demand. This will allow us to deliver a faster and more reliable mobile connectivity experience even during peak periods.”