Finnish operator Elisa claims gigabit LTE milestone with Huawei

While “5G” promises to bring multigigabit speeds to mobile, there’s still a long runway for the development of innovative new LTE-based services like gigabit LTE. Claiming a world first, Finnish operator Elisa, in conjunction with equipment vendor Huawei, said it achieved a 1.9 gigabits per second throughput using an LTE test network.
“This new speed record is a step toward the 5G network and also an excellent indication of all the opportunities the 4G network still has to offer,” Elisa VP of Mobile Network Services Sami Komulainen said. “The speeds that the 4G network offers are continuously increasing and, possibly in the next few years, we will even be able to offer mobile data connections of several gigabits per second to our customers.
“A speed of almost two gigabits may seem unheard-of,” he continued, “and many people are wondering if such speeds are even needed in everyday use. However, there will be more and more demand for high-speed connections in the future as, for example, 360-degree videos and virtual reality applications become more popular.”
In the push to gigabit LTE, Huawei uses the term “4.5G,” which is marked by advancements around 4×4 multiple-input/ multiple-output, 3D beamforming, enhanced carrier aggregation techniques and 256 quadrature amplitude modulation among other technologies.
Gbps is implemented through 4×4 MIMO, 3D beamforming, 4CC/5CC CA, 256 QAM and other technologies.