Nokia, MTS deploy FDD-TDD carrier aggregation technology in Moscow

NEW DELHI: Finland based telecom giant Nokia and MTS have deployed FDD-TDD carrier aggregation technology on MTS's commercial LTE network in Moscow to increase network coverage and capacity and improve the customer experience as data demand continues to rise with 5G on the horizon.

As people and machines place greater demands 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.

Thanks to Nokia completing 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.

Nokia, working within the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), has driven FDD-TDD carrier aggregation for the 1800 MHz and 2600 MHz bands in the recently finalized 3GPP Release 13 standard of LTE-Advanced Pro, allowing operators to fully leverage their spectrum resources in these frequency bands.

Overview of the technology

LTE-Advanced FDD-TDD carrier aggregation technology using the Nokia Flexi Multiradio 10 Base Station and LTE software aggregated 10 MHz of spectrum in the FDD 1800 band and 20 MHz of spectrum in the TDD 2600 band to boost average speeds to up to 187 Mbps

In the demonstration of three component carrier aggregation on the network, 25 MHz of spectrum was aggregated across the FDD 1800 (10 MHz), 2600 (10 MHz) and 800 (5 MHz) bands

Andrey Ushatsky, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at MTS, said: "We are continuously working to increase the quality and availability of our LTE services and cooperating with Nokia enables us to provide innovative and reliable services to our subscribers. 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. This project with MTS marks a new milestone in our longstanding relationship with them, as we continue to trial technologies that allow the operator to take the next steps towards 5G."

Did You Know

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.<1>

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.