Swisscom has rolled out an LTE-Advanced network in Berne and Lausanne railway stations as a prelude to it becoming available in the cities of Berne and Biel/Bienne next month.
The technology has been undergoing testing in the Swisscom’s labs since February and the company said the technology will allow speeds as high as 300Mbps in optimal conditions, achieved by interconnecting two 150Mbps LTE channels.
The first devices to allow use of these higher transmission speeds will be available from the autumn. Swisscom is the first mobile network provider in Switzerland to roll out LTE-A.
The operator said its streaming services for video and music account for 65 percent of the total data volume over its mobile network, with the volume of data on the network currently doubling every year.
Swisscom already offers 4G coverage to over 90 percent of the population and says by the end of the year it will have invested over €1.4 billion this year alone in the its mobile infrastructure.
A report from the Global mobile Suppliers Association published last week found that at least a fifth of the 300 plus operators deploying LTE networks around the world are also investing in LTE-A.
In Europe, LTA-A trials are already underway from BASE in Belgium, Orange in Spain and Magyar Telecom in Hungary.
Research from ABI last month predicted that LTE-A connections will account for 34 percent of the total 1.47 billion LTE subscriptions that will operate by 2018. Western Europe will account for 55 million of the total 500 million LTE-A connections.
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