Ericsson expects LTE-Advanced to go live in 2013
Vendor demonstrates the forthcoming standard in Sweden on its RBS 6000 flexible base stations
Published: 29 June, 2011
READ MORE: Sweden | Ericsson | Standards | LTE
Ericsson has followed Nokia Siemens in demonstrating LTE-Advanced, even before the next generation standard is finalized. It showed off a test network in Kista, Sweden, claiming a tenfold improvement on current LTE speeds on commercial networks in the country ' but this would still leave the new system short of the gigabit speeds demanded by the ITU for 'true 4G'.
The test was performed using test frequencies provided by the PTS regulator and showed off key attributes of LTE-Advanced such as extended MIMO antenna arrays (using eight antennas at either end), and carrier aggregation, both designed to boost capacity and data rates well beyond current '4G' performance. Ericsson combined three blocks of 20MHz in an LTE environment for the first time.
It does not see this as a bluesky technology ' the standard should be ratified this year and the vendor believes it will be pushing it into commercial upgrades by 2013, especially as it will be backwards compatible with the current version. Predictably, Ericsson expects its homeland to be one of the first nations to deploy LTE-Advanced.
Urban Landmark, head of the spectrum department of the PTS, said in a statement: 'Sweden is in the forefront when it comes to usage of mobile broadband. Sweden was both early with licensing of harmonized spectrum in the 2.6GHz and 800MHz bands, and the first country in the world where LTE was commercially deployed. The demonstration today indicates that mobile broadband technologies continue to evolve rapidly.'
Ericsson said that the showcase used its current commercial RBS 6000 base station, emphasizing that LTE-Advanced will be deployable on current infrastructure as carriers invest in flexible networks that support multiple standards simultaneously. NSN made a similar point when it demonstrated LTE-Advanced on its Flexi platform earlier this year.
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