Singtel of Singapore announced it is beginning a phased launch of near-gigabit speeds on its LTE Advanced network at selected high-traffic outdoor locations across the island, starting with Orchard Road.
Offering data rates of up to 800 Mbit/s, Singtel claims that the new service is Southeast Asia's fastest LTE mobile data peak speed, delivering up to 60% faster download speeds than existing LTE services that offer speeds of up to 450 Mbit/s.
The operator stated that the near-gigabit transmission speeds are enabled by scaling pre-5G technology solutions, 4 x 4 MIMO and 256QAM, combined with triple carrier aggregation (CA) of spectrum exclusive to Singtel.
Following the initial launch, customers with Sony Xperia XZ Premium smartphones will be able to access the 800 Mbit/s peak speeds at the outdoor areas of Shaw Centre, ION Orchard and Tang Plaza along Orchard Road. Singtel noted that deployment at Orchard Road, Raffles Place and Clarke Quay is scheduled to begin by the end of August, while additional Cat 16 smartphones able to support gigabit speeds are expected to be launched later in the year.The new 800 Mbit/s mobile service augments Singtel's existing nationwide 450 Mbit/s mobile data speeds. The operator noted that according to Singapore's regulator IMDA it currently offers the widest outdoor 4G coverage, as well as the highest mobile data rates on the island.
* Earlier this year, Singtel and Ericsson announced they were working together to pilot massive MIMO and cloud RAN on Singtel’s 4G LTE network as part of the evolution to 5G and delivering gigabit mobile data rates. Specifically, Ericsson supplied its AIR 6468 radio, providing 64T64R massive MIMO capabilities for testing prior to progress deployment on Singtel’s 4G LTE network.
