Bharti Airtel has conducted India’s first trial of Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) technology over a live LTE network in Delhi-NCR – in association with Ericsson.
Airtel India will be able to utilize LAA technology to offer Gigabit LTE speed by using unlicensed spectrum. LAA enables the use of unlicensed spectrum in the 5 GHz band in combination with the licensed spectrum.

Airtel network achieved data download speeds of over 500 Mbps on smartphones in indoor conditions during the trial.

This apart, Airtel achieved peak download speed of more than 400Mbps with coverage of about 180 meters from the base station in outdoor conditions.

Airtel used one LTE 5 MHz carrier aggregated with three 20 MHz carriers of unlicensed spectrum. Airtel also used Ericsson Radio System together with 4CC carrier aggregation, 4×4 MIMO and 256 QAM technologies, for the LAA trial in India.

“India’s first LAA trial is a big step towards 5G and Gigabit LTE networks. LAA is an important technology evolution that can unlock the power of 4G networks by leveraging  unlicensed spectrum,” Randeep Sekhon, CTO – Bharti Airtel, said.

“LAA is a key evolution of mobile technology to increase capacity, improve data speeds and enhance user experience through the combination of licensed and unlicensed spectrum,” said Nitin Bansal, head of Network Solutions, South East Asia, Oceania and India.