Unitel and Ericsson have achieved a 450Mbps LTE downlink speed by combining three 20MHz LTE carriers on the Unitel commercial network in Angola, using Ericsson multi-standard hardware and software.
The two companies announced the successful demonstration of the end-to-end LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) Carrier Aggregation (CA) solution capable of supporting data speeds up to 450Mbps. The demonstration utilised 60MHz of spectrum, with three 20 MHz LTE carriers in band 3 (1 800MHz), band 7 (2 600MHz) and band 1 (2 100MHz) respectively.
This marks the first time 450Mbps speed has been demonstrated on a commercial LTE network in Africa, and is also one of the first demonstrations of its kind in the world. It confirms the maturity and readiness of the Unitel network to support LTE-A 450Mbps data speed.
Amilcar Safeca, board member and deputy CEO of Unitel, says: “The 450Mbps demo in Unitel’s LTE commercial network ascertains our leading position in technological innovation not only in Angola, but globally. At the same time, aims at ensuring that our network has the capabilities to be among the most advanced mobile networks in Africa and in the world. We are enhancing our network to guarantee the best experience to our subscribers when utilizing all the services Unitel has available.”
LTE-A CA enables operators to use spectrum more efficiently to deliver better user experience to customers wherever they are in their networks. Mobile users can enjoy super-fast downloads and better performance of their favourite applications.
Fredrik Jejdling, head of Ericsson sub-Saharan Africa, says: “Mobile broadband is opening up a world of opportunities by facilitating industry transformation and bringing inclusion and empowerment to communities. This is especially true in countries across Africa, where the technology enables access to tools, services, expertise, entertainment, and information that was previously out of reach to the majority.”
