blog Just how fast can 4G mobile broadband go? Very fast, according to Telstra, which has been conducting trials of LTE-Advanced Carrier Aggregation technology. The company’s executive director of networks and access technologies, total geek and all-round good guy Mike Wright, writes on Telstra’s Exchange blog:
“Back in August I wrote about the possibilities of LTE- Advanced Carrier Aggregation which allows greater data download speeds by aggregating spectrum across the two spectrum bands and this morning we were able to see this in action, live on our commercial 4G network, by aggregating two channels of 20MHz spectrum to achieve download speeds of up to 300 Mbps in a trial environment.
The trial was conducted using a commercial test device and aggregating 20 MHz bandwidth within the 1800 MHz spectrum band and 20 MHz bandwidth within the 2600 MHz band.
While these trial speeds are very impressive and exciting (and we expect that actual typical customer speeds on commercial services will be lower), these trials are important for another reason as they build on our earlier LTE-Advanced work and set us up to continue to deliver a reliable network experience and more reliable speeds into the future. We have all seen around the world what happens when operators can’t keep up with customer demand. Without a strong, multi-year strategy the rapid rate of data growth would quickly swamp any new network rollout.
As we move into 2014 we will use these trials to inform the development of our network and the early launch of devices that will be ready for the combined APT700 MHz and LTE1800 spectrum bands.”
Now, I think we can all agree, and Wright already warned us, that these won’t quite be the speeds which we’ll be seeing in the wild, and before we get into any NBN-related discussions, let me remind readers that wireless technologies such as mobile broadband are complementary to fixed broadband services, due to wireless’ issues with concurrent usage, cost and so on. Although these kinds of technologies may drive some users to purely mobile usage patterns, overall data growth will continue to push most users to get better usage out of their fixed broadband networks.
But lookit! It sure is cool that Telstra can do this over 4G! Yes please! Mike, can you blanket Sydney with this, ASAP? Pretty please?
Image credit: Speedy Gonzales (Warner Bros)
While this is nice would it not be a more efficient use of spectrum to provide better guaranteed speeds.
While peak speeds are nice for bragging rights with the current download limits and general resolution needed for streaming less than Television why would I need 300Mbps apart from burning through my data limit in under a minute?
A more reliable service with less congestion would be a far better outcome than being able to get 300mbps at 4 am on a Wednesday
Hi Telstra,
300mbps is great. However, I would rather you work to make it affordable for me to have > 1GB monthly mobile download quota before you bother too much with improving the speeds. 4G is already quite zippy given the meagre download quota.
I’d love to have 300mbps….but only if I can DL > 10GB/month (more like 50-100GB). Otherwise it’s overkill.
Wasn’t LTE-A the original 4g spec? Nice to see it finally arriving!
Awesome for burstable traffic, however under load this will be highly variable.
NextG has seen it’s share of load and performance issues (as have most LTE based services) – sure the service might hit these speeds, but they’re not assured and certainly not consistent – something to remember when the inevitable “this is the future!!” is claimed.
I’d be happy with a 3G service that provides consistent connectivity and throughput. All LTE is going to do is make the feeling of loss even greater, since the times that 4G works I’ll consider dropping my wired connection, then the times 4G doesn’t work I’ll be feeling the pain because I no longer have the fallback of wired network :P
A 3G network that works more consistently (i.e.: similar throughput through all of its coverage area) would be lovely. I was trying to telecommute from Fairfield the other day and the network was so unreliable that I just gave up and went to the library to read a book.
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