300Mbps Cat 6 LTE-A already adopted by 20 operators – GSA

So far 20 operators across 15 countries have launched 300Mbps Category 6 LTE-Advanced services, according to a paper by the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA).

The paper, titled LTE-Advanced Carrier Aggregation deployment: peak speeds, lists the following countries as having seen LTE-A services deployed by utilising the 300Mbps Cat 6 carrier aggregation technology: Australia, Austria, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland and the UK.

Cat 6 is defined by the 3GPP as a system that has a theoretical peak downlink speed capability of 300Mbps, and 50Mbps on the uplink. According to the GSA, 49 operators in 31 countries have launched commercial LTE-A carrier aggregation with lower download speeds (between 110Mbps and 300Mbps).

“A further 22 Category 6 LTE-Advanced systems are also being deployed or in a trial phase,” Alan Hadden, GSA’s President said. “It means that 42 operators in total are investing in 300 Mbps LTE-Advanced deployments in 24 countries.”

The GSA also said nine Cat 9 systems are either at a deployment, trial or test stage in Australia, Japan, Portugal, Qatar, Turkey, South Korea, Switzerland, UAE and the UK. According to the 3GPP’s specification, Cat 9 is a system with a theoretical peak downlink speed of 450Mbps, and 50Mbps uplink.

Meanwhile, capabilities “well” beyond- as the GSA put it- Cat have also been demonstrated in a number of multi-band and multi-mode LTE-A trials.