Nokia and MTS have deployed FDD-TDD carrier aggregation technology on MTS's commercial LTE network in Moscow.
The deployment will increase network coverage and capacity and improve the customer experience as data demand continues to rise with 5G on the horizon. As demand escalates on mobile networks, operators such as MTS are looking to utilise existing spectrum and radio resources more efficiently. Carrier aggregation - a technique used in LTE-Advanced standards - allows non-contiguous bands of spectrum to be bonded to create wider channels, resulting in faster LTE speeds and the delivery of new services.
Following Nokia’s completion of the first commercial deployment of FDD-TDD carrier aggregation in Russia in a business district of Moscow, MTS' subscribers can now experience data speeds of up to 187 Mbps, compared to peak speeds of 75 Mbps over FDD-LTE in the 10 MHz band and 112 Mbps over TD-LTE. The deployment also improves on the service quality of TD-LTE by enhancing service quality inside buildings.
Nokia and MTS have also conducted a demonstration of FDD-LTE three component carrier aggregation on the network in Moscow, with a plan to implement the technology in the future. Nokia and MTS continue to test and deploy LTE-Advanced, LTE-Advanced Pro and 5G technologies to enable a smooth evolution to 5G networks.
Andrey Ushatsky, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at MTS, said: "Unique for Russia, FDD-TDD carrier aggregation functionality will let us increase average access speeds for flagship smartphones by 1.5-2 fold. This technology is important as its further implementation in Russia will help increase the efficiency of frequency resource use."
JP Takala, head of East Europe market unit at Nokia, said: "LTE-Advanced Carrier Aggregation allows operators to leverage new network efficiencies and deliver a better customer experience through increased data speeds."
Mobile data services in Russia have grown sharply in the last decade, fuelled by the adoption of smartphones, tablets and machine-to-machine market developments. At the end of 2015 there were 107 million active mobile data subscribers (SIM cards) in Russia, growing 9% from the 2014 figure.
MTS subscribers with smartphones downloaded twice as much data in 2015 than in 2014 and the total traffic grew by 1.5 times in the same period.
