Huawei and HKT have said they successfully demonstrated the world’s first 1 gigabit-per-second mobile network at the Global Mobile Broadband Forum 2015 in Hong Kong.
The demo is said to have reached peak download speed of as high as 1.2 Gbps. The two companies said the demo is a significant milestone towards the commercial availability of what they term “4.5G” technology, which is expected to be deployed as early as next year.
In partnership with Huawei, HKT launched Hong Kong’s first two component carrier aggregation network in 2014, offering single-user peak download speeds up to 300 megabits per second. Earlier this year, HKT and Huawei demonstrated IP radio access network-based three component carrier aggregation with a single-user peak rate up to 450 Mbps. The most recent demonstration was a four component carrier aggregation network, with a peak download speed claimed to be 2.6-times faster than the 3C CA network.
HKT said that it aims to launch tri-band carrier aggregation this year and is targeting four-band CA for 2016.
Huawei said the introduction of “4.5G” LTE technology will allow operators to improve the user experience and support the proliferation of machine-to-machine communications and the “Internet of Things,” as well as new mobile Internet applications, such as those using virtual reality glasses and drone technology.
Hong Kong is highly developed in terms of the adoption of telecoms services, with a mobile penetration rate of over 220%. Wireless data services have grown eight-fold in the past five years, according to Huawei.