AT&T Claims First in the U.S. 5G Standalone Uplink Between Carriers

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Just a few weeks ago, AT&T (NYSE: T) completed what it hailed as “the first 5G SA Uplink two-carrier aggregation data call in the U.S.” According to Jason Sikes, the AVP Device Architecture. No one in the U.S market has successfully aggregated two carriers in 5G SA uplink – until now.

“The test was conducted in our labs with Nokia’s 5G AirScale portfolio and MediaTek’s 5G M80 mobile test platform,” Sikes said. “We aggregated our low-band n5 and our mid-band n77 spectrum. Compared to our low-band n5 alone, we saw a 100 percent increase in uplink throughput by aggregating our low-band n5 with 40MHz of our mid-band n77. Taking it a step further, we achieved a 250 percent increase aggregating 100MHz of n77.”

The bottom line, according to Sikes, is the carrier achieved upload speeds of over 70 Mbps on n5 with 40MHz of n77 and over 120 Mbps on n5 with 100MHz of n77. The test was done via a two-layer uplink MIMO on time division duplex in AT&T’s mid-band n77.

“This feature will not only improve uplink throughput but also enhance cell capacity and spectrum efficiency,” he said. “A key part of this evolution is the critical transition phase we are entering in scaling from 5G non-standalone to 5G standalone.”

The company says it plans to deploy standalone 5G when the ecosystem is ready, and AT&T is charging forward to advance SA ecosystem readiness. Businesses and developers will be some of the first to take advantage of the new technologies standalone 5G enables, Sikes said, as they continue to move from research and development to their deployment.

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