Ericsson announced a demonstration of LTE TDD (TD-LTE) carrier aggregation for China Mobile. The test achieved a peak download speed of 223 Mbps using two carriers of 20MHz each over a standard radio unit.
The demonstration was performed in Beijing on standard Ericsson Evolved Packet Core (EPC) and Ericsson RBS 6000 radio hardware already running in China Mobile’s network, along with standard radio units and data link boards supporting carrier aggregation. Aeroflex provided the TM500 test user equipment.
“This demonstrates what is technically possible today, showing how operators with LTE TDD networks can benefit from their frequency holdings with Ericsson’s help. It proves that TDD operators can provide competitive peak-rate performance for their users,” stated Per Narvinger, Head of Product Line LTE, Business Unit Networks at Ericsson.
TDD operators often have access to relatively large swathes of spectrum. The carrier aggregation can efficiently make use of this spectrum by combining two or more carriers into one channel (for example, 20+20MHz), effectively putting them on the same terms as FDD operators that have access to 20MHz for uplink and downlink separately.
Consumer devices that support TD-LTE with carrier aggregation are expected to reach the market in 2014.
