Ericsson and SmarTone top 800 Mbps in LAA demo

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Ericsson and Hong Kong cellco SmarTone have announced a successful trial of Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) technology in a live over-the-air demonstration in Hong Kong.

LAA allows the use of unlicensed spectrum in the 5-GHz band in combination with licensed spectrum, which enables operators to gain more capacity and faster data speeds while making efficient use of unlicensed spectrum resources.

For the trial, SmarTone aggregated four component carriers: one 10-MHz LTE band and three 20-MHz bands of unlicensed spectrum. The trial also utilized 4×4 MIMO, 256QAM technologies, a Qualcomm Snapdragon X16 LTE mobile test device and Ericsson’s micro Radio 2205, which is designed for unlicensed spectrum.

Result: download speeds at around 800 Mbps.

SmarTone chief technology officer Stephen Chau said the LAA trial takes SmarTone  “a great step further toward 5G.”

Future enhancement of LAA includes 5CC carrier aggregation support in 2018, enabling allows download speeds to exceed 1 Gbps, said Petra Schirren, president of Ericsson Hong Kong and Macau. “Through the introduction of advanced technologies such as LAA, we enable Gigabit Class LTE on the road to 5G”.

The trial is the latest of several between SmarTone and Ericsson since the companies extended their partnership last year to pursue SmarTone’s 5G roadmap.

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