Austrian operator A1 Telekom Austria has conducted a successful demonstration of LTE Advanced aggregation using base station technology provided by Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks, as the operator prepares to bring ultra-fast mobile broadband to the home of the edelweiss.
A1 has already made the first development stage of the LTE standard available over the last two years, enabling its subscribers to enjoy data speeds of up to 150Mbps per cell.
Apart from rising data transmission volumes, the operator has also indicated that machine-to-machine (M2M) will also be driving the operator’s strategy going forward.
“Apps on smartphones and tablets that enable the exchange of photos and video clips are becoming increasingly popular among our customers,” said Hans Pichler, Group CTO of the Telekom Austria Group.
“As a result, data volumes across mobile networks will continue to significantly increase in the years to come. In close collaboration with the development laboratories of its technology suppliers, Telekom Austria Group is already testing the next generation of LTE.”
The live demonstration in Vienna included handling large file transfers with a simultaneous video stream, with download speeds reaching 580Mbps, which is more than twice as fast as the current peak 4G LTE data speeds.
“The LTE standard has been designed in such a way as to allow the use of different frequency bands and therefore to enable international roaming. One of the next steps will be carrier aggregation, which allows for a considerable increase in data rates,” said Volker Ziegler, Head of Strategy and Technology Portfolio at Nokia Siemens Networks.
According to Sanne Stijve, Business Development Manager Mobile Broadband at Ericsson, LTE-A also enhances network capacities by exploiting the time differences of a radio signal using multiple paths within the same frequency channel.
“The new MIMO (Multiple-input and Multiple-output) technologies are not yet market-ready. However, development departments are well on track and can already anticipate what can be expected over the next few years,” he said.
“In combination with carrier aggregation, they will turn LTE-Advanced into a Gigabit technology that will allow a large number of users to simultaneously access high data rates within one mobile radio cell.
“For future planning purposes, network providers need to be able to anticipate future technology trends to adjust their strategies accordingly.”