Optus has today announced that they’ve begun trialling 4.5G technology – also known as LTE-Advanced Pro – at their Gigasite in Newcastle, testing technology provided by partner Huawei and they’ve achieved some impressive results.
The trials achieved download speeds of 1.41Gbps with Optus saying they could acheieve theoretical maximum speeds of up to 1.43Gbps. The trial saw a peak download speed of 1.23Gbps over the air in live network conditions using a combination of Carrier Aggregation, Higher Level Modulation, and 4X4 MIMO.
Dennis Wong, Optus Networks acting Managing Director said of the trial
We continue to utilise our network and spectrum assets to test our network of the future and prepare for 5G. By 2020, 5G will be here and we are committed to identify ways to prepare our network to support this new technology and further improve customer experience.
James Zhao, Huawei Australia CEO said
This field trial in Newcastle is a first and important milestone as a direct result of our local investments in R&D here in Australia. This joint trial represents a significant advance toward fulfilling Huawei’s & Optus’ commitment to developing 4.5G technology in Australia.
The move to trial 4.5G is part of a move towards eventually implementing 5G, with Huawei and Optus parent company Singtel entering into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on joint R&D with Huawei in 2014.
Tay Soo Meng, Singtel Group Chief Technology Officer said,
As we work towards 5G we expect significant demand for cost-effective connection to a multitude of sensors and devices, and it is important that operators deliver new capabilities to enable the new connected ecosystem to support the growth and innovation of M2M services.
It’s simply a trial at this stage, but lays the foundation for launching technological leaps further down the tracks. Huawei and Optus are doing some pretty interesting stuff here, and well, we can’t wait to see it live in Australia for everyone.
