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.”
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.
