du, from Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (EITC), Nokia and MediaTek today announced that they had achieved successful carrier aggregation by combining spectrum used by three Time Division Duplex (TDD) carriers. During the test, the data speed reached to 4.520 Gbps, which will provide the operator with a performance and capacity boost once deployed widely in the live network. It will enable du to provide high-speed internet connectivity to UAE residents through many 5G products including its ‘ Home Wireless’ offering. The trial was conducted with Nokia, a leader in the field of development of 5G Carrier Aggregation (CA) within a sub-6 GHz spectrum.
The trial was conducted by using Nokia’s commercial AirScale Baseband and massive MIMO products, powered by its ReefShark chipset, as well as pre-commercial software running on du’s live network. MediaTek provided its 5G mobile platform with Mediatek Release-16 M80 modem. Through aggregating two bands with high bandwidth — 200 MHz of N78 and 100 MHz of N41 — the companies were able to achieve the world’s highest spectrum throughput.
Saleem AlBlooshi, Chief Technology Officer, du: “Our customers are becoming more closely connected to technology with our superior 5G network. We are excited to achieve the highest throughput ever by using such advanced technology; thanks to our collaboration with Nokia and MediaTek. This milestone will enable us to plan for the new and enhanced services that we will be able to offer with 5G and put us in a leading position to highlight our commercial 5G capabilities. Strengthened by the industry-first trial with Nokia, we are able to create, market, and deliver our services whilst ensuring unmatched speed, capacity, and coverage.”
Mikko Lavanti, Senior Vice President, Mobile Networks, Middle East and Africa at Nokia, said: “Carrier Aggregation is the key to unlocking high throughput also in the Sub-6 GHz spectrum bands, which additionally provide great coverage. The mid-band allocations allow for 100 MHz wide 5G carriers, which translates directly into higher peak data rates and increased average data rates for users, giving them access to more attractive services. Nokia’s industry leading 5G Carrier Aggregation solutions help operators maximize the benefits of their spectrum assets, as our collaboration with du demonstrates.”
“This milestone demonstrates MediaTek’s industry-leading M80 5G modem and its smooth compatibility with a wide range of 5G Carrier Aggregation (CA) deployments. MediaTek has designed the M80 5G modem with scalability to support a multitude of 5G NR frequency bands in a complex matrix of band combinations, multiplexing methods, MIMO layers and flexible bandwidths,” said Miles Sun, General Manager, Asia and Africa at MediaTek. He added, “Our vision is to work with the ecosystem to continuously enhance 5G capacity and performance with features that add value to consumers of Smartphones and mobile broadband 5G devices (MiFi and CPE). This collaboration with du and Nokia is an important step in making this vision a reality in the UAE’s advanced 5G market.”
By combining spectrum from different bands, CA enhances network coverage and capacity, allowing service providers to make the most of 5G spectrum and offer improved data rates, coverage, and performance. Furthermore, it enables service providers to lower the cost of deploying 5G networks while improving the customer experience.
