Telstra, Ericsson, Qualcomm and Netgear achieve 2 Gigabit 4G speeds

Applications and Research

A consortium of optical telecoms and mobile technology firms Telstra, Ericsson, Netgear and Qualcomm Technologies have achieved what they call “record-breaking 4G speeds of up to 2 Gigabits per second” in recent lab testing using a new commercially-announced chipset.

The top speeds are made possible using Ericsson’s Baseband 6630, Radio 4415, and latest Gigabit LTE network software. The high speeds are enabled by aggregating five 20 MHz LTE carriers across three different frequency bands with each carrier using 4×4 MIMO and 256 QAM technologies.

The February 2018 demonstration saw 2Gbps speeds achieved by aggregating 100MHz of spectrum across the bands 1, 3 and 7, using a NETGEAR Nighthawk mobile router equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon X24 LTE modem, the world’s first-announced Category 20 LTE modem.

LTE innovation
Telstra’s Group Managing Director of Networks Mike Wright commented, “Following Telstra’s world first Gigabit-enabled network launch in 2017, we are delighted to again be partnering with Ericsson and Qualcomm to double these speeds. This achievement demonstrates our continued LTE innovation, providing our customers with an unrivalled network experience and preparing our networks for future growth.”

Serge Willenegger, Senior VP and General Manager, 4G/5G and Industrial IoT, Qualcomm Wireless, commented, “By setting this major industry milestone, we’re helping operators fully mobilize their spectrum assets and maximize the capacity of their Gigabit LTE networks and allowing mobile device makers to offer consumers a preview of new services soon expected to be enabled with 5G networks.”

Joakim Sorelius, Head of Product Area Network Systems at Ericsson, said, “This technology advancement will enable faster mobile broadband speeds and greater network capacity for all subscribers. This is important as users consume and generate greater amounts of content via video streaming and share their own pictures and video content.”