Australian carrier Optus, in partnership with Ericsson, has carried out a trial in which it delivered coexistence of narrow band IoT (NB-IoT) and Ericsson Spectrum Sharing between 5G and 4G in 700 MHz spectrum.
Optus said that this combination of technology will enable 5G services on low frequency spectrum bands, giving a boost in 5G coverage, without compromising the customer experience offered by mid-band 5G services.
“This test has shown that our 5G coverage footprint on our world class network can be extended without compromising 4G and NB-IoT customer experience and is the first step in being able to carefully introduce this technology. The test also highlights the ability to achieve spectrum efficiency through enabling multiple services and technologies on the same spectrum resource,” said Lambo Kanagaratnam, managing director of Optus Networks.
“Ericsson Spectrum Sharing (…) helps to maximize equipment reuse and existing spectrum while rapidly delivering 5G services, paving the way for faster time-to-commercialization of a new generation of business and consumer opportunities – from augmented and virtual reality to eSports streaming,” said Martin Wiktorin, Ericsson’s head of global customer unit Singtel.
The Australian operator achieved peak download rates of 4.5 GB/s in a live commercial network environment in a demonstration conducted with equipment provided by Ericsson and Casa Systems.
The trial utilized Casa Systems’ AurusAI commercial CPE device on the operator’s commercial RAN, which was supplied by Ericsson. Optus previously achieved a speed of more than 5 Gb/s in a controlled environment at its Sydney headquarters.
“We can’t wait for our customers to start connecting to our mmWave 5G network as commercial devices become available later this year. These speeds are truly incredible and alongside the other benefits of mmWave will help to open up a raft of new applications for both consumers and enterprise,” added Kanagaratnam.
Optus currently has more than 1,300 5G sites across Sydney, Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra as well as key areas outside of these cities.
Last month, Optus said it had switched on its first six 5G mmWave commercial sites in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
Optus said that its mmWave sites are equipped with 800 megahertz of spectrum. For Optus customers, this means that once mmWave commercial devices are available, they will benefit from the ultra-high capacity and speeds enabled by mmWave.
The new mmWave sites include four Sydney-based locations: Kings Cross, Surry Hills, North Ryde and Optus Sydney Campus, as well as Huntingdale in Melbourne and Strathpine in Brisbane.
In July 2020, Optus had announced it was testing 5G mmWave technology in partnership with Ericsson. In January 2020, Optus had successfully implemented spectrum sharing technology from Ericsson to make an end-to-end 5G video test call while simultaneously streaming video content on a 4G device. The Optus network was able to assign spectrum resources on both 4G and 5G switching between them in milliseconds to support the different service video demands from both users, Optus said.
Earlier this year, Finnish vendor Nokia and Optus claimed a record aggregate site throughput after hitting download rates of 10 Gbps using 800 megahertz of mmWave spectrum at a live 5G site in Brisbane.
