Russian cellular market leader Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) has announced the successful testing on its commercial LTE network in Ufa of five-carrier frequency aggregation with a total bandwidth of 75MHz enabling data transfer rates of up to 1.4Gbps in partnership with Ericsson. MTS notes that the LTE-A standard allows aggregation of up to seven carriers with a total spectrum bandwidth of up to 140MHz, making the most of available spectrum to provide peak data rates up to 2Gbps. Aggregation demonstrates the potential of MTS’ 4G network after refarming of the GSM-1800 and UMTS-2100 bands, the operator’s press release added.
The tests aggregated the bands B1 (FDD 2100MHz), 2хB3 (FDD 1800MHz), B7 (FDD 2500MHz) and B38 (TDD 2600MHz) using 4×4 MIMO mode and 256QAM modulation in each band.
Egor Fisyuk, MTS director in the Republic of Bashkortostan (Bashkiria), declared: ‘Our strategy for modernising existing LTE networks is aimed at introducing the latest technologies that provide our subscribers with high access speeds and network capacity to provide modern digital services. The test proves that on the eve of the first 5G launches, the potential of fourth-generation networks has not yet been fully exhausted – on their basis we can build 5G-ready gigabit networks using the entire frequency spectrum available in Bashkiria.’
Source: https://www.commsupdate.com/articles/2021/07/14/mts-ericsson-test-1-4gbps-lte-a/