MTS has teamed up with Ericsson and Qualcomm to trial Licence Assisted Access (LAA) technology in Russia.
The technology combines 5GHz unlicensed spectrum with an operator’s licensed holding to deliver improved LTE quality to customers.
This demonstration was held in an MTS test lab and used Ericsson’s Pico RBS 6402 small cell, the first time a commercial device from the vendor was used to trial LAA. The small cell can deliver speeds of up to 300MBps and is the size of a consumer tablet. Qualcomm supplied a Category 16 LTE mobile test device featuring a Snapdragon processor.
Andrei Ushatskiy, MTS Vice President, Technology and IT, said: “Delivering the level of mobile connectivity our subscribers expect, across a wide variety of environments, is a primary focus of MTS. This successful demonstration is the first of its kind in Russia, and shows our commitment to exceeding our customers’ expectations with enhanced experiences.”
Ericsson claimed LAA would help operators to meet future data demands, predicting average consumption will reach 11GB per month by 2022. Arun Bansal,
Senior Vice President, Europe & Latin America, Ericsson, commented: “LAA uses unlicensed spectrum to boost data speeds, offering subscribers the chance to enjoy enhanced LTE experiences on their devices. This technology allows LTE and Wi-Fi users superior performance in both indoor and outdoor environments by sharing the spectrum in unlicensed bands.”
Yulia Klebanova, Vice President, Business Development, Qualcomm Europe, added: “LAA enables more operators globally to offer Gigabit LTE, which is an essential foundation when introducing the 5G mobile experience.”
[Read more: Industry heavyweights show off gigabit LTE using LAA]
A report from ABI Research last month said that vendors and hardware providers will be boosted by the likes of LAA, as they look to cost efficient options to boost their spectrum holdings.