T-Mobile and Ericsson push Licensed Assisted Access to 1.1 Gbps

In a demo conducted at  T-Mobile's lab in Bellevue, Washington, T-Mobile and Ericsson achieved speeds of 1.1 Gbps using 12-layer Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) technology.

The set-up sued Ericsson's Radio System and the TM500 network test equipment from Cobham Wireless. The test combined several LTE technologies including 256 QAM, 4x4 MIMO, and LAA by aggregating two licensed carriers and three unlicensed carriers.

The Ericsson Radio 2205 delivers LTE on the 5GHz unlicensed band in outdoor micro cell environments. Using LAA, the unlicensed carriers can be aggregated with licensed carriers on the micro cells or on nearby macro cells.

The companies claim this to be the first demo in the world to hit speeds beyond the 1 Gbps threshold on unlicensed spectrum.

“Breaking the 1 Gbps-mark means that commercial gigabit speeds are not far from reality for many broadband users, with our LAA and MIMO technologies as key enablers. It is also an example of how innovatively we work with partners to push the boundaries of technology and achieve new milestones,” said Fredrik Jejdling, Executive Vice President and Head of Networks at Ericsson.

Neville Ray, Chief Technology Officer for T-Mobile, says: “T-Mobile has built the nation’s fastest LTE network by innovating and bringing new technologies to market for our customers. This LAA technology builds upon our deployments of 4x4 MIMO and 256 QAM and will give customers even greater access to near gigabit speeds in 2018.”