Iran’s second largest wireless operator by subscribers, MTN Irancell, says it has carried out trials of LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) 4.5G mobile data services. A report from Tasnim news agency cites the cellco’s chairman and CEO Alireza Ghalambor Dezfouli as saying that the tests achieved peak download speeds of 1.2Gbps, with upload speeds reaching 66Mbps. The trials used two carriers in the 1800MHz band.
Separately, Irancell’s CEO says the firm has now deployed 3.5GHz time division duplex LTE (TD-LTE) fixed-wireless networks in 49 cities, having begun a project in August this year to upgrade its legacy WiMAX systems to the faster technology. Irancell now claims to be serving 2.6 million customers on its 4G networks.