SoftBank data speed grows 40% after spending in Ericsson RAN

Softbank 4G
Telecom network and software giant Ericsson today said it increased data speeds of SoftBank by 40 percent in Tokyo station with Elastic RAN.

Ericsson has completed the first commercial implementation of Ericsson Elastic Radio Access Network (RAN) in Tokyo station area, one of the busiest train stations in the world. Results show downlink user data throughput increased by up to 40 percent during peak hours for commuters.

Ericsson will continue the deployment of RAN throughout dense urban areas across SoftBank’s network in Japan.

SoftBank deployed Elastic RAN, which is included within the Ericsson Cloud RAN solution, in order to improve users’ mobile broadband experience through elastic coordination of users and cells.

Spending on Ericsson Elastic RAN enables SoftBank to benefit from an unlimited number of cells that can be coordinated across the entire network providing flexibility in the aggregation of the different network cell carriers independent of user location. SoftBank’s mobile users in Japan will gain because coordinating and aggregating cell carriers improves user data speeds and overall network performance.

The results of the Tokyo train station commercial implementation show that downlink throughput increased by up to 40 percent during peak hours for commuters with three carrier aggregation enabled smartphones.

“We partner with Ericsson in the first introduction of the Elastic RAN solution to enable performance of the most advanced smartphones in the world, in the densest and most challenging areas of our network. We are expanding Elastic RAN deployment to further deliver high performance throughout our network,” said Hideyuki Tsukuda, deputy head of Technology Unit, SoftBank.

SoftBank will continue to deploy Ericsson Elastic RAN throughout dense urban network areas in Japan. Ericsson and SoftBank will also work on further development of Elastic RAN to continue the enhancement of this capability.