Huawei and HKT claim 440Mbps LTE-A live test

HKT, the mobile subsidiary of telco PCCW, has announced the successful live testing of LTE-A carrier aggregation (CA) alongside Huawei. The telco claims to have achieved peak download rate speeds of 440Mbps.

The trial saw HKT and Huawei utilise a three component carrier inter-site LTE-A CA approach across three 20MHz spectrum blocks on an IP-based RAN.  According to Ovum’s WCIS database, HKT is the dominant mobile player in the HK market with nearly 40% market share; and the telco reckons the commercialised roll-out of LTE-A surpassing 400Mbps will drastically improve both quality of service for consumers and ease network congestion.

The telco specifically mentioned a “dramatically improved Internet experience to Hong Kong mobile users, enabling faster downloads, enhanced audio and video streaming, and more reliable video conferencing.”

The CA approach HKT is utilising to achieve its LTE-A coverage leans on some Huawei tech which essentially helps to combine severely fragmented spectrum, and is able to combine carriers from multiple cell sites. As a consequence, HKT is able to maximise the coverage of its LTE-A.

Speaking of the successful trial, MD of engineering at HKT Peter Lam reckons the CA solution and partnership with Huawei is all with the customer in mind, and for providing the best network facilities possible.

“HKT has always been a pioneer in technology and is one of the early adopters of LTE-A technology among other global players,” he said. “Building on our fibre-rich network and leveraging our widest range of mobile spectrum, HKT commercially launched Hong Kong’s LTE-A 300Mbps network in December 2014 by combining two 20MHz spectrum blocks. With Huawei’s advanced IP-RAN based CA solution, HKT will be able to get the most from our frequency resources to further raise the bar to LTE-A 450Mbps by combining disparate chunk of 20MHz spectrums from different sites. This will enable HKT to provide more network capacity together with a superior and unparalleled user experience. We are proud to be a leader in LTE-A adoption and we will continue to deploy advanced technology to improve network performance for our customers.”

Huawei’s David Wang, president of the vendor’s wireless network product line, is now targeting the full commercial roll-out of the tech. “Huawei and HKT are committed to building a world-leading LTE-A commercial network for Hong Kong,” he said. “Having achieved the world’s first inter-site 3CC CA realization, we will now work together to plan for the full commercial use of this technology, aiming to further uplift the mobile experience for Hong Kong users.”

HKT says it expects the network to be commercialised and ready for compatible smartphones by 2016.