Swisscom has said its customers will have access to data speeds up to 450MBps by the end of 2015 as the operator begins testing tri-band LTE-A carrier aggregation.
The operator recently demonstrated the bundling of three 4G/ LTE frequencies at a media event in Berne, Switzerland.
The operator said that the “next step” in LTE technology would be available for customers at the end of 2015, when it also expects the first smartphones supporting speeds of 450Mbps to become commercially available.
Swisscom also announced it would be launching a VoLTE service that would become available to subscribers by the middle of next year, again when it expects compatible smartphones to reach the market.
Earlier this year, the operator began rolling out its “4G+” LTE-A service to limited locations in Switzerland, which it said provided theoretical speeds of up to 300MBps by interconnecting two 150Mbps LTE channels.
The operator said that its LTE-A service will be available in Base, Biel, Geneva, Lucerne, Lugano, Lausanne and Zurich by the end of 2014, with around 30% of the population having access to the high-speed network by the end of 2015.
Heinz Herren, Head of Networks at Swisscom, said: “The intensive usage of smartphones [has] resulted in increased expectations as regards high-speed mobile Internet connections and high service availability. Swisscom is therefore constantly upgrading its mobile networks.”
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