Finnish operator Elisa is claiming a world record for LTE, after hitting speeds of 1.9GBps on its 4G network.
It said the speeds would help pave the way for future virtual reality applications, which will figure high data rates.
TDC, Proximus, Deutsche Telekom in Poland and Vodacom have been among the operators who have recently broken through the 1GBps barrier in a range of network carrier aggregation demonstrations.
Elisa did not detail which spectrum bands it used in the demonstration, which took place with the assistance of Huawei. It previously hit a maximum speed of 450MBps on its network and offers commercial speeds of up to 300MBps.
Sami Komulainen, Vice-President of Mobile Network Services at Elisa, said: “This new speed record is a step towards the 5G network and also an excellent indication of all the opportunities the 4G network still has to offer. The speeds that the 4G network offers are continuously increasing and, possibly in the next few years, we will even be able to offer mobile data connections of several gigabits per second to our customers.
“A speed of almost two gigabits may seem unheard-of, and many people are wondering if such speeds are even needed in everyday use. However, there will be more and more demand for high-speed connections in the future as, for example, 360-degree videos and virtual reality applications become more popular.”