TIM Brasil and suppliers Ericsson and MediaTek conducted the first pilot tests in the Brazilian city of Itajuba, in the state of Minas Gerais, with carrier aggregation (CA) in 5G standalone architecture.
The tests carried out on TIM's network used CA technology from Ericsson and MediaTek, in 5G Standalone architecture. The objective was to measure the coverage expandability, which reached a 65% rate in the middle band.
The trio used TDD and FDD modulation simultaneously and based on distinct numerologies. The tests aimed to measure the capacity to extend coverage. The pilot used TIM's network infrastructure, MediaTek's Dimensity 1100 chipset, and Ericsson's AIR 3239 5G radio.
"Companies tested the use of the 3.5 GHz band with 5G Standalone and its behavior when working together with 5G DSS in the 2.6 GHz band, for coverage expansion purposes," local media reports said.
The trio further explained that the CV technology could become one of the main tools for the implementation of 5G in the 3.5 GHz frequency due to the benefits of the expansion of coverage, in addition to ensuring greater speed in connections. In 4G, the technology is used to offer LTE-Advanced, commercially called by Brazilian operators as "4.5G".
In conjunction with Ericsson Spectrum Sharing (ESS), the CA transfers part of the signaling that limits the range at 3.5GHz to another lower-band 5G carrier shared with LTE, via the ESS. This results in a significant increase in 5G coverage. In scenarios with standalone architecture implementation, CA is even more important, since there is no use of an anchor carrier in 4G for uplink traffic flow.
“Given the diversity of available spectrum, it is essential that we aggregate the different frequency bands using 5G Carrier Aggregation”, explains Marcos Scheffer, Ericsson's vice president of networks for the Southern Cone of Latin America, showing that the process can improve coverage cell phone and provide higher peak rates.
