Singtel and Ericsson achieve 1.1Gbps speeds in LAA trial

Singapore’s Singtel and Swedish vendor Ericsson claim to have achieved a peak speed of 1.1Gbps in a joint trial of a new configuration of Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) technology. The laboratory tests broke the 1Gbps barrier by successfully combining several key LTE technologies including 256 QAM, 4×4 MIMO, and aggregating two licensed and three unlicensed spectrum bands on a TM500 Test System device. In a press release, Ericsson said that the unique twelve-layered LAA configuration used in the trial will provide two to three times faster than prevailing peak LTE speeds, resulting in enhanced user experience, especially in high traffic indoor environments such as shopping malls. Following this successful trial, Singtel will now explore the feasibility of deploying the technology on Singtel’s network, which already claims to be able to deliver peak data speeds of 500Mbps via 4.5G LTE-A technology.