Huawei and China Mobile have announced the completion of what they claimed is the world’s first uplink carrier aggregation (CA) field trial over Jiangsu Mobile’s commercial network.

According to the two partners the test, which included 64QAm (quadrature amplitude modulation) increased the uplink rate by 180%, demonstrating uplink CA’s performance in a live network. Huawei said this brings the technology’s commercialisation one step closer.

“Uplink CA is a key LTE-Advanced technology and can dramatically increase uplink data rate,” Huawei said in a statement. “Practical applications include but not limited to pictures and video sharing by individual users, as well as video surveillance, telemedicine, and shoot-and-transmit for enterprise users.”

The Chinese networking vendor claimed its uplink CA solution is easy to deploy with a simple software upgrade and without the need to purchase any additional equipment. China Mobile has also begun upgrading its Shenzhen network to TDD LTE-A by implementing downlink CA.

In related news, Huawei has also partnered with operator China Unicom in Guangdong to deploy its Atom Router for commercial use for the first time. As well as the Atom Router, which Huawei claims is the world’s smallest router, the project was completed by using Huawei’s Intelligent Perception solution.

According to Huawei, the combination of the router and the intelligence solutions enables operators to collect network data on traffic and KPIs. The vendor also said it also has anti-congestion technology to curb packet loss and jitter, as well as boasting a big data analysis system.

“The industry’s first deployment of an Atom Router for commercial use proves the maturity and commercial readiness of Huawei’s innovative IP technologies and E2E solutions, and will enable Guangdong Unicom to build leading and optimised networks for users,” Gai Gang, President of the Huawei Router and Carrier Ethernet Product Line said.

“Huawei is dedicated to the needs of its customers, and will continue to help them to develop golden pipelines, open networks, and value-added services.”

These two deployments are another example of the telecom’s sector’s growing move to software-based networking, and the Atom Router implementation is also evidence of the emergence of big data within telecommunications. How quickly these technologies will be rolled-out on a mass-scale, remains to be seen.