Working in collaboration with Nokia, BT said it has become the first operator in Europe, and maybe globally, to aggregate four carrier components in a 5G Standalone live network. The achievement will give users access to more bandwidth and higher data speeds.
How was it done: Four low-band and mid-band radio channels were combined by BT’s team using Nokia’s 5G RAN technology using EE’s live network. The trial, which used MediaTek’s M80 5G modem and Nokia AirScale radios, was conducted in two stages; it was first performed in BT’s Radio Lab in Bristol, and then moved outdoors, onto a radio mast at BT’s Adastral Park in Suffolk, where 4CC was transmitted over a 5G SA network using EE’s spectrum.
Carrier Aggregation: A Short History
In March 2011, the concept of carrier aggregation was introduced in 3GPP LTE Release-10 (Advanced LTE), and it supported five component carriers with bandwidth options of 1.4, 3, 5, 10 and 20 MHz, according to RF Wireless World. For 5G NR, the standard supports more than three times the component carriers, aggregating 16, but MNOs are just beginning this journey.
T-Mobile Shoots for 3
In June, T-Mobile announced that it was the first to aggregate three channels of mid-band 5G spectrum, reaching speeds of more than 3 Gbps on its standalone 5G network, using a commercial device (Samsung Galaxy S22 powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Mobile Platform with Snapdragon X65 Modem-RF System) on a live production network.
In the test, T-Mobile merged two channels of 2.5 GHz and one channel of 1900 MHz spectrum – creating an effective 210 MHz 5G channel.
In January of this year, T-Mobile announced that a test with Ericsson and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., exceeded 1 Gbps on upload by combining 2.5 GHz Ultra Capacity spectrum with millimeter wave using a smartphone test device powered by the Snapdragon X65 5G Modem-RF System. NR CA is live in parts of T-Mobile’s network today, combining two 2.5 GHz 5G channels.
By J. Sharpe Smith, Inside Towers Technology Editor
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