Etisalat begins LTE-Advanced rollout

United Arab Emirates (UAE) telco Etisalat has begun the upgrade of its 4G network to Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) carrier aggregation (CA) technology, paving the way for peak theoretical download speeds of up to 700Mbps. Live testing has been completed on Etisalat’s 1800MHz/2600MHz 4G network and the operator is now waiting for LTE-A handsets to be made available before announcing a commercial launch date. The firm is currently deploying 150Mbps LTE technology to cover 88% of the populated areas of the UAE. Saeed Al Zarouni, senior vice president of Business Planning and Technology Evolution at Etisalat, said: ‘While our 4G network is well prepared to respond to the growing demand for mobile data, to ensure that we are able to accommodate new opportunities and strengthen our services, we will continue to build capacity and expand through investments in our networks and resources.’