BT and Nokia reach new 5G SA carrier aggregation milestone
UK incumbent BT is on a mission to squeeze as much uplink capacity out of 5G standalone (SA) as possible.
August 24, 2023
UK incumbent BT is on a mission to squeeze as much uplink capacity out of 5G standalone (SA) as possible.
Earlier this month it shared details of a wideband frequency division duplex (FDD) trial with Ericsson and MediaTek that led to a three-fold increase in uplink bandwidth on a single carrier.
On Thursday, BT announced that with help from Nokia and Qualcomm, it has successfully demonstrated two component carrier aggregation (2CC CA) on the uplink on a 5G SA network at its Adastral Park research centre.
BT also simultaneously achieved 4CC CA on the downlink, and claims it is the first telco in Europe to have demonstrated 5G SA uplink and downlink carrier aggregation at the same time. In terms of throughput, BT recorded a peak download speed of 1 Gbps and peak upload of 230 Mbps.
When BT detailed its wideband FDD trial, it noted that the 5G SA specification is currently based on a single uplink carrier, which begs the question, why try and aggregate uplink carriers?
The answer, according to BT on Thursday, is that uplink carrier aggregation is something to have handy in future, when data demand inevitably calls for ever more uplink capacity.
“Carrier aggregation will be key to delivering the very best 5G experience to our customers, with this latest trial in partnership with Nokia demonstrating significant performance increases in terms of uplink speeds,” said Greg McCall, BT’s chief networks officer, in a statement.