Ericsson, Qualcomm claim first inter-company LTE Cat 9

Swedish telecom infrastructure vendor and mobile chip giant Qualcomm have announced what they claim is the world’s first inter-company interoperability trial of LTE Category 9 carrier aggregation. The two firms said the technology offers download speeds of up to 450Mbps.

The testing was done over Ericsson’s LTE-A network infrastructure equipment based on the vendor’s commercially available 14B software release, and Qualcomm’s LTE-A modem. Ericsson said the equipment is designed to support its multi-standard RBS 6000 family of macro and small cell network base-stations. According to the company, this ensures optimal user experience on multi-frequency networks.

“Inter-company vendor interoperability testing between network and device is key to enabling large-scale commercial deployments,” Thomas Norén, VP, Head of Radio Product Management at Ericsson said. “Working with ecosystem partner Qualcomm, we continue to drive LTE innovation and performance improvements, ensuring a great user experience even as mobile broadband demand grows.”

“We are excited to see our next-generation LTE-Advanced modem play an important role in enabling the world’s first multi-company interoperability Category 9 test,” Serge Willenegger, VP, Product Management at Qualcomm said. “We are pleased to be working closely with Ericsson to help lead the mobile industry’s transition to next-generation network connectivity as ultra-fast mobile broadband connectivity has become an essential feature for mobile users.”

These milestone announcements are good PR, but it would be nice to be offered some other parameters such as when, where and by who this groundbreaking tech will be used.