Set to boost speed and coverage of du’s 5G Home Wireless
Finnish network creative Nokia, Taiwanese modem maker MediaTek and Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (EITC) spin off mobile operator du claim they have shattered a world networking. They broke new ground for telecoms by achieving a successful carrier aggregation which combined the spectrum used by three Time Division Duplex (TDD) carriers to deliver data at nearly 5 gigabits per second in a 5G environment.
In a test, data moved across a network at 4,520 gigabit per second which, they claim, could be replicated on a live network. It would enable mobile operator du to boost the throughput of its 5G offerings including its ‘Home Wireless’ service. The trial was conducted with Nokia, currently one of the top pioneers in the field of development of 5G Carrier Aggregation within a sub-6 GHz spectrum.
Carrier Aggregation (CA) has a key role to play in improving the performance of the Sub-6 GHz spectrum bands and Nokia’s 5G CA help operators make the most of their spectrum assets, as our collaboration with du demonstrates, explained Mikko Lavanti, Nokia’s SVP of Mobile Networks for the Middle East and Africa. “The mid-band allocations allow for 100 MHz wide 5G carriers, which translates directly into higher peak data rates and increased average data rates for users, giving them access to more attractive services,” said Lavanti.
The trial was conducted by using Nokia’s commercial AirScale Baseband and massive MIMO products, powered by its ReefShark chipset, with ‘pre-commercial software’ running on du’s live network. MediaTek provided its 5G mobile platform with Mediatek Release-16 M80 modem. By aggregating two high-bandwidth bands, namely the 200 MHz of N78 and 100 MHz of N41 spectrum ranges, the companies broke the world record for spectrum throughput, they have claimed.
In the test MediaTek’s M80 5G modem displayed easy compatibility with a wide range of 5G Carrier Aggregation (CA) deployments, said witnesses. MediaTek designed the M80 5G modem to expand to support a multitude of 5G New Radio frequency bands in a complex matrix of band combinations, multiplexing methods, MIMO layers and flexible bandwidths.
“Our aim to continuously enhance 5G capacity and performance with features that add value to consumers of Smartphones and mobile broadband 5G devices, said Miles Sun, General Manager, Asia and Africa at MediaTek. This collaboration with du and Nokia is an important step in making this vision a reality in the UAE, which is one of the world’s most advanced 5G markets, said Sun.
“This milestone will enable us to create, market and deliver our services whilst ensuring unmatched speed, capacity and coverage,” said Saleem AlBlooshi, Chief Technology Officer at du.