Du, a leading telecommunications service provider in the UAE, has announced a milestone with the successful field test for LTE-A carrier aggregation between the 800MHz band and the 1800MHz band, a new mobile broadband technology that is aimed at providing greater speed and reliability to mobile subscribers across the UAE.

This builds on du’s achievement earlier this year that compared to its LTE footprint in 2012, the company more than doubled its LTE footprint in the UAE in 2014 and is yet another step in du’s continuous efforts to offer best-in-class network technology to its customers, it said.

Coordinated in partnership with Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, the carrier aggregation technology was tested on du’s 4G LTE mobile network. The adoption of LTE-Advanced carrier aggregation solutions can ultimately help provide du customers with greater access to high-speed 4G LTE mobile broadband services across more locations in UAE while significantly improving indoor coverage.

The latest field test successfully demonstrated the LTE-Advanced carrier aggregation between two LTE frequency bands, namely 800Mhz and 1800Mhz frequencies, a statement said.

According to telecom experts at Analysys Mason, in 2014 it is expected that more operators will deploy LTE-A carrier aggregation worldwide with early tests enabling operators to bind separate spectrum channels together to create larger channels and faster wireless services, as well as reduce operational expenditure from running multiple networks, the statement said.

Saleem Al Balooshi, executive vice president of network development and operation, du, said: “Offering innovative and class-leading customer experience means the most to us and utilising the 800MHz band to provide 4G-LTE Mobile Broadband Services to the public is a pivotal technology vehicle we are planning to use to further enhance the user experience and significantly extend our state of the art 4G-LTE network coverage to a larger section of du customers."

In addition to extending outdoor coverage to areas not currently covered by LTE, using the 800MHz band, as witnessed during the trial, considerably enhances the deep indoor coverage due to the excellent physical characteristics of this band.

As also experienced during the trial, the use of the 800MHz band for LTE reduces significantly the required number of sites to provide the same coverage compared to the other available spectrum bands. Consequently, the carbon emissions generated from the overall mobile network sites will be reduced, which is of a great support to du continuous efforts toward protecting the environment in the UAE and embracing Green ICT initiatives, the statement said. - TradeArabia News Service