MTS launches 700 Mbps LTE-A Pro

Hot on the heels of TIM, Russian operator MTS has switched on 4.5G in Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Ufa and Yakutsk.

MTS has thrown every piece of contemporary wireless cleverness it could get its hands on in a bid to claim world-class bandwidth. These include frequency aggregation (LTE FDD 1800 MHz + LTE TDD 2600 MHz), 4×4 MIMO and a dash of 256-QAM for good measure. MTS scored the 2600 spectrum earlier this year to allow this aggregation to be done on a nationwide basis.

“MTS is committed to maintaining its leadership in telecoms technology in Russia and is laying the groundwork to evolve its networks to a 5G standard,” said Andrey Ushatskiy, CTO of MTS. “Today, on the eve of the introduction of devices supporting 4.5G, we are launching the first commercial LTE Advanced Pro network in Russia.

“Indeed, we are the first telecom operator in the world to launch aggregated FDD and TDD network, which permits us to achieve mobile internet speeds of up to 700 Mb/sec. In this way we not only provide our customers with a significant increase in their internet speeds, but we also increase the efficiency of MTS’s use of the LTE TDD spectrum in the 2.6 GHz range.”

It seems that having a TLA (three-letter acronym) as your company name instils some kind advantage when it comes to souping up your LTE. Telecom Italia had shown no signs of leading Europe until it changed its name to TIM, and now its LTE is faster than a speeding bullet, is more powerful than a locomotive and is able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Surely it’s just a matter of time before SFR streaks ahead in France.