Nokia and T-Mobile hit 1.3 Gbps with Licensed Assisted Access

T-Mobile has hit download speeds of 1.3 Gbps using Nokia's commercial Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) technology.

The high-performance was achieving using 14-layer transmissions during tests conducted at T-Mobile's lab in Bellevue, Washington. The tests employed an Nokia AirScale Micro RRH connected to an AirScale system module. Speeds of 1.3 Gbps were achieved by aggregating LTE carriers in licensed and unlicensed bands using five-component carrier aggregation, 256QAM, 4x4 MIMO and LAA on 14 antenna layers.

Neville Ray, chief technology officer at T-Mobile, said: "We are working to deploy small cells that support LAA and build on the LTE-Advanced features we've deployed across the country, laying a foundation for 5G. Our priority is ensuring customers have the best mobile experience, so we are accelerating LAA and five carrier aggregation to give them even higher speeds and greater network performance."

Marc Rouanne, president of Mobile Networks at Nokia, said: "Nokia is providing a path towards 5G that allows operators like T-Mobile to attain gigabit speeds with LTE by leveraging all available licensed and unlicensed spectrum. With LAA, we are helping T-Mobile gain higher download peak rates than could be achieved with licensed spectrum alone. This adds capacity beyond the spectrum licensed to this operator, and the existing network sites are used with limited TCO investment."