Swisscom taps quad-carrier aggregation to bring 800MBps to its store

Swisscom has enabled four-band carrier aggregation on its live network in one of its retail stores in Zurich, offering speeds of more than 800MBps.

The operator, which worked with Ericsson on the demonstration, combined the 800MHz, 1800MHz, 2.1GHz and 2.6GHz bands at its shop in Füsslistrasse, also using 4×4 MIMO and advanced 256-QAM modulation.

It verified the speeds by using a Sony Xperia XA handset, which will be sold by the operator from 6 June. It said it is now looking to offer customers 1GBps on its network as it upgrades sites throughout 2017.

A spokesperson said: “Thanks to 1 GBps, all Swisscom subscribers will, in the future, benefit from more network capacity, which is essential for providing the best network experiences despite a steep rise in internet usage.

“The use of video content with a HD smartphone display in particular enhances the appeal of video enjoyment now and in the future. The jump in technology also permits new virtual reality, gaming and real time communication applications.”

According to figures from the operator, more than 40 percent of the Swiss population can access speeds of 300MBps. Fifteen percent of the Swiss can get speeds of 450MBps with a compatible handset.

Last month, Monaco Telecom became the latest telco to roll out gigabit LTE, through tri-carrier aggregation, 256QAM and 4×4 MIMO, as well as a cloud RAN solution provided by Huawei.