Telecom network vendor Ericsson has supplied LTE-Advanced three-carrier aggregation solution combining LTE in both FDD and TDD modes to Swisscom, a telecom operator in Switzerland.

Swisscom, which is focusing on broadband expansion, is planning to offer LTE-Advanced services on three-carrier aggregation to subscribers in Swiss metropolitan areas by summer 2016 when three-carrier FDD/TDD smartphones will be available.

The Swiss telecoms operator deployed the LTE solution on August 18, 2015 in a Swisscom shop in Zurich, Switzerland, in order to demonstrate three carriers in two bands in a radio access network using commercial-grade chipsets. Swisscom achieved maximum 335 Mbps in the downlink, said Ericsson in a statement.

“With LTE FDD and TDD we are the first provider in Europe to offer a completely new combination of technologies, and in doing so we are underscoring our technological leadership. LTE FDD/TDD will be provided to all our customers at heavily frequented locations from summer 2016,” said Heinz Herren, CTO of Swisscom.

Swisscom has used two LTE TDD carriers each with 20 MHz bandwidth in the 2.6 GHz frequency band (B41) and one LTE FDD carrier with 15 MHz in the 2.1 GHz band (B1) for the live commercial network.

Ericsson Radio Access Network software 15B and hardware, as well as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X12 LTE modem supported the live demonstration in Zurich.

The combination of the three carriers in FDD-LTE and TDD-LTE will significantly enhance the future capacity of the network. The new technology will allow more users to benefit from peak data rates for downloads and uploads when using mobile internet, entertainment or enterprise services.

Baburajan K
[email protected]