T-Mobile US has successfully staged a standalone (SA) 5G data session which aggregated the 600MHz and 2.5GHz spectrum bands. The cellco teamed up with Ericsson, LG and MediaTek for the trial, which utilised a commercial LG VELVET 5G smartphone. T-Mobile notes that by aggregating the two bands, existing 5G download speeds were boosted by an average of 20%.
The cellco explains: ‘Today T-Mobile customers can access three different types of 5G spectrum – low, mid and high-band (AKA millimetre wave [mmWave]) – but they can only unleash capacity from one of those 5G layers at a time. With new radio carrier aggregation (NR CA) that changes, giving devices the ability to combine the capacity of the different layers.’