Telecom network vendor Ericsson said Orange achieved 300 Mbps speed using the 3.4-3.6 GHz (3.5 GHz) frequencies during testing data speeds, coverage and FDD carrier aggregation.
The telecom service provider conducted the live LTE-Advanced FDD trial, which was authorized by the French regulator ARCEP, in October-November 2014 on Orange’s network in Bordeaux using Ericsson’s pre-commercial equipment.
During the first phase of the trial at the Orange Labs in Paris, Orange achieved speeds of 300 Mbps by using the 3.5 GHz band in aggregation with the 2.6 GHz band. The company also conducted the second phase on Orange’s live mobile network on Ericsson’s pre-commercial FDD 3.5 GHz radio base station equipment.
Ericsson installed new antennas supporting the 3.5 GHz band at the Le Ponant and Meriadeck sites in the city center of Bordeaux. Orange achieved a peak performance of 150 Mbps at a distance of up to 700 meters in the 3.5 GHz band when used alone, and speeds of 300 Mbps in aggregation with the 2.6 GHz band.
“This FDD trial demonstrated that the 3.5 GHz band can be successfully used in urban and suburban environments in stand-alone mode or in aggregation with another band to provide advanced mobile broadband services using a FDD access scheme for high peak data rate applications to enhance user experience,” said Alain Maloberti, senior vice president, Orange Labs Networks.
Orange has a customer base of 240 million customers worldwide at 30 September 2014, including 182 million mobile customers and 16 million fixed broadband customers.
