By Juan Pedro Tomás
Nokia, Optus and Samsung Electronics Australia announced that they have achieved a data session using three-component-carrier (3CC) Carrier Aggregation (CA) technology over a 5G Standalone (SA) network in Australia.
The European vendor said that once commercially deployed, the solution will enhance the experience of Optus’ customers with superior speeds and performance and pave the way for advanced 5G use cases such as AR and VR.
Nokia also noted that it has prioritized the development of 5G Carrier Aggregation technology across sub-6 GHz 5G spectrum.
For this trial, Nokia used its latest commercial AirScale Baseband and radio portfolio powered by its Reefshark chipset over Optus’ commercial network. The trial combined the FDD band (2100MHz) with the TDD band (2300 MHz + 3500 MHz) using CA technology.
Nokia also said that 5G Carrier Aggregation allows compatible 5G smartphones to receive multiple 5G frequency bands in parallel, enabling higher data rates, increased coverage and superior network capacity while maximizing the spectral efficiency of 5G networks. By combining spectrum from different frequency bands, mobile operators can make optimal use of their 5G spectrum, enhancing coverage and network capacity.
VP of Networks at Optus, Lambo Kanagaratnam said: “We’re always looking at ways that we can further optimize our network performance to benefit our customers. Once available commercially, this 3 NR Carrier operation will enable customers to achieve a higher 5G download speed at more places improving their overall 5G experience. Our Samsung Galaxy S22 customers will soon be the first to benefit from this technology enhancement with other handsets to follow shortly after.”
In November 2021, Optus announced the launch of a 5G Standalone (SA) trial prior to the commercial launch of this technology, expected for 2022.
Optus said it will be using multiple bands to conduct limited trials for retail customers using the Oppo X3 Pro handset.
Optus is working with Ericsson on its 5G Standalone core network.
In May 2021, Optus switched on its first 5G mmWave commercial sites in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
In July 2020, Optus had announced it was testing 5G mmWave technology in partnership with Ericsson. Also in 2020, Optus had successfully implemented spectrum sharing technology from Ericsson to make an end-to-end 5G video test call while simultaneously streaming video content on a 4G device. The Optus network was able to assign spectrum resources on both 4G and 5G switching between them in milliseconds to support the different service video demands from both users, Optus said. Dynamic Spectrum Sharing is a technology that allows an operator use the same spectrum at the same time for LTE and 5G, with the network base stations controlling the allocation of spectrum.
