Vodafone Portugal, Ericsson and Qualcomm have achieved gigabit speeds over LTE in what the operator claimed is a major step towards 5G.
The demonstration saw a 1GB video file downloaded in less than 10 seconds on a pre-commercial handset.
The operator said it had been busy improving its mobile infrastructure, through upgrading existing software and hardware.
In July, for example, it again partnered with Ericsson and Qualcomm to hit 600MBps using three aggregated 60MHz bands with 256QAM modulation
“This is another milestone in Vodafone Portugal’s innovation history, which, by enhancing its investment in its next-generation mobile network, has helped to significantly improve the users’ telecommunications experience, bringing more advanced technology to its customers,” Vodafone Portugal said in a statement.
It follows a number of other operators in Europe to reach the 1GBps threshold.
Vodafone’s opco in Romania used five carrier aggregation across FDD and TDD bands, alongside 256QAM and 4×4 MIMO, to hit theoretical speeds of 1.38GBps last month.
In December, Denmark’s TDC launched a 1GBps mobile network at Copenhagen Central Station ahead of a wider roll out in the country.
Speeds of over 1GBps are expected to be the norm with 5G.
Earlier this week, Cisco forecast 5G will take a 1.5 percent share of global mobile data traffic by 2021.
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