Telefónica Germany has announced the activation of its fastest LTE-Advanced radio cell – capable of achieving data transmission rates of 225Mbps – as well as VoLTE testing with Cat 6 devices.
The technology has been installed on the Telefónica building at Georg-Brauchle-Ring in Munich.
The operator said that that it was able to achieve the super-fast transmission rates thanks to carrier aggregration technology provided by Huawei. This enables the base stations in question to provide 150Mbps in the 2.6GHz band and up to 75Mbps at 800MHz.
Further, Telefónica Germany said VoLTE technology is available “at several base stations” currently, while “complex” handovers from LTE to 2G or 3G networks would be completed during the next few weeks.
However, the operator is only able to use the service with prototype Cat 6 devices, also provided by Huawei. The China-based vendor will unveil the first commercial Cat 6 devices in the first half of next year, according to a statement.
Earlier this month, UK operator EE claimed it had the world’s fastest LTE-A network with 300Mbps.
In August, Ericsson and Telstra announced they had completed the world’s first commercial LTE-A trial using CA on 1800MHz and 900MHz spectrum.
“Telefonica in Germany is again taking a leading position in the latest mobile radio technology,” said Martin Škop, Managing Director Network Technology at Telefónica Germany.
“With O2 LTE we already today reach data rates of up to 50 Mbit/s and offer a mobile user experience, which so far was only possible at home with WiFi. With LTE the same services can be used with your smartphone as up until now have been available on a PC or a tablet at home.
“In future this is even going to work nearly five times faster with Carrier Aggregation. By doing this we are preparing the LTE network for the requirements of the future.”
According to analyst firm Research and Market, the global VoLTE market will grow at a CAGR of 300 percent between 2012 and 2016.
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