[August 31, 2016] |
|
Sprint and Nokia Kick-Off Three-Channel Carrier Aggregation LTE Plus Deployment in Kansas City
Today Sprint (News - Alert) and Nokia kicked-off the launch of three-channel carrier
aggregation in Kansas City's LTE Plus Network with a live demonstration
at Kauffman Stadium. Just prior to the Royals vs Yankees match-up, the
companies showcased three-channel carrier aggregation reaching peak
speeds as high as 230 Mbps inside the stadium using the Samsung (News - Alert) Note7,
Galaxy S7, S7 edge, HTC 10 and LG G5.
Carrier aggregation is an LTE-Advanced feature that bonds together bands
of spectrum to create wider channels, produce greater capacity and
deliver faster speeds on capable devices. Essentially it creates a wider
lane that allows more data traffic to travel at higher rates.
Sprint began its roll-out of two-channel aggregation in 2015. Today
Sprint uses two-channel carrier aggregation to deliver peak speeds of
more than 100 Mbps in 237 LTE (News - Alert) Plus markets across the country using 40
MHz of 2.5 GHz spectrum on the company's LTE Plus cell sites. With
three-channel carrier aggregation Sprint will utilize 60 MHz of spectrum
in the 2.5 GHz band to provide peak download speeds of more than 200
Mbps on compatible devices. Sprint holds more than 160 MHz of 2.5 GHz
spectrum in the top 100 U.S. markets. Sprint also uses 800 MHz and 1.9
GHz spectrum to provide strong coverage and reliability across its LTE
Plus network.
Sprint has begun its three-channel carrier aggregation deployment in
Kansas City with more than 100 cell sites slated to be on air in the
metro area by the end of September. Today's announcement follows a live demonstration
by Sprint earlier this week at Soldier Field in Chicago where Sprint has
more than 500 cell sites deployed across the city.
At Kauffman Stadium Sprint utilized its 2.5 GHz spectrum to deliver
download speeds as high as 230 Mbps. It also showcased live streaming of
ultra-high definition 4K video and the blazing fast, high-bandwidth
capability of Sprint's LTE Plus Network. Participants were also able to
experience a low-latency, high-speed, virtual reality system.
"Kansas City is our hometown and it's also one of the most tech savvy
cities in the country, so it's fitting that it would be one of our first
markets to receive this advanced capability," said Dr. John Saw, Sprint
CTO. "4K streaming and powerful virtual reality systems are on the rise
and we're excited to take our LTE Plu network to the next level
increasing our speed and capacity 50% more with three-channel carrier
aggregation."
Behind the scenes, today's demonstration utilized the Nokia Flexi
Multiradio 10 Base Station for LTE TDD, including TD-LTE-Advanced 8-pipe
radio (8T8R) that can deliver all three carriers from a single unit on
8T8R configuration for better performance and coverage. Sprint is the
only carrier in the U.S. using 8T8R radios which improve LTE Plus
coverage and signal strength. More antennas deliver a stronger, narrower
beam that transmit more energy to the cell edge giving customers better
coverage, reliability, and faster data speeds.
"Nokia has been an innovation force in carrier aggregation, starting
with our first carrier aggregation demonstration in 2013, industry first
six carrier aggregation demonstration with Sprint in 2014, and today
with the U.S.'s first LTE TDD three carrier aggregation in a commercial
network," said Ricky Corker, executive vice president and head of North
America for Nokia. "Our carrier aggregation feature not only increases
the end user throughput significantly, but also balances Sprint's
network load on three carriers for an efficient use of spectrum. Most
importantly, it offers a great experience at home, office or at Kauffman
Stadium."
Sprint offers 23 devices that actively support carrier aggregation on
its super-fast LTE Plus Network. Three-channel carrier aggregation is
slated for enablement on devices via an automatic software update
following network deployment.
A Reliable, Capacity-Rich Network
Sprint LTE coverage reaches approximately 300 million people - more than
90 percent of the U.S. population. And Sprint's highly reliable network
is better than ever. In fact, Sprint's analysis of drive test data from
Nielsen - covering the top 106 metropolitan markets in the U.S. - shows
that Sprint's reliability now beats T-Mobile's and performs within 1% of
AT&T and Verizon (News - Alert).1
With Sprint's deep spectrum holdings and a reliable, capacity-rich
network that's built for data, Sprint is proud to now offer Unlimited
Freedom with unlimited talk, text, and mobile optimized streaming
videos, gaming and music.2 And for customers that prefer a
higher resolution video streaming experience, Sprint offers Unlimited
Freedom Premium.3
About Sprint:
Sprint (NYSE: S) is a communications services company that creates more
and better ways to connect its customers to the things they care about
most. Sprint served more than 59.4 million connections as of June 30,
2016 and is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying
innovative technologies, including the first wireless 4G service from a
national carrier in the United States; leading no-contract brands
including Virgin Mobile (News - Alert) USA, Boost Mobile, and Assurance Wireless;
instant national and international push-to-talk capabilities; and a
global Tier 1 Internet backbone. Sprint has been named to the Dow Jones
Sustainability Index (DJSI) North America for the past five years. You
can learn more and visit Sprint at www.sprint.com
or www.facebook.com/sprint
and www.twitter.com/sprint.
1 Claim based on Sprint's analysis of latest Nielsen drive
test data for average network reliability (voice & data) in top 106
markets. 2 Mobile optimized video streams at up to 480p+
resolution, music at up to 500kbps, streaming cloud gaming at up to
2mbps. Data deprioritization applies during times of congestion. 3
Premium resolution video streams at up to 1080p+, music at up to
1.5mbps, gaming streams at up to 8mbps.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160831006514/en/
[ Back To Mobile World Congress's Homepage ]
|