Ericsson, Bharti Airtel Conduct India’s First LAA Trial in a Live Network

Ericsson and Bharti Airtel announced that they have successfully conducted India’s first trial of Licensed-Assisted Access (LAA) technology over a LIVE LTE network.

LAA is a key technology as operators evolve their networks to achieve Gigabit LTE by opening up previously untapped resources of unlicensed spectrum delivering speeds once thought only possible over fiber.

LAA enables the use of unlicensed spectrum in the 5 GHz band in combination with the licensed spectrum. With this, the subscribers get a massively enhanced mobile broadband experience and ultra-fast speeds while operators make efficient use of unlicensed spectrum resources.

During the trial, data download speeds of over 500 Mbps were recorded on smartphones in an indoor environment. In an outdoor environment, the peak download speed of more than 400Mbps was achieved with coverage of about 180 meters from the base station. The trial was conducted in Delhi-NCR.

Airtel used one LTE 5 MHz carrier aggregated with three 20 MHz carriers of unlicensed spectrum. Together with 4CC carrier aggregation, 4×4 MIMO, and 256 QAM technologies, the trial was conducted using Ericsson Radio System.

Randeep Sekhon, CTO – Bharti Airtel said, “Airtel has always led the introduction of cutting-edge network technologies to serve its customers. We are pleased to partner Ericsson to conduct India’s first LAA trial, which is also a big step towards 5G and Gigabit networks. LAA is an important technical evolution that can truly unlock the power of 4G LTE networks by leveraging unutilized unlicensed spectrum.”

Nitin Bansal, Head of Network Solutions, South East Asia, Oceania, and India at Ericsson commented, “LAA is a key evolution of mobile technology and we are pleased to be partnering with Airtel to demonstrate the increased capacity, improved speeds and enhanced user experience through the combination of licensed and unlicensed spectrum.”

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