Optus, Huawei achieve 1.41Gbps speeds in 4.5G wireless trial

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news Optus and Huawei late last week said a live trial of 4.5G technology has produced mobile download speeds of 1.41Gbps.

The successful trial of specific sets of 4.5G technologies, also known as LTE-Advanced Pro, involved a cabled scenario conducted at Optus’ Gigasite in Newcastle, north of Sydney.

Using a combination of carrier aggregation, higher level modulation and 4X4 MIMO, the tests achieved a peak download speed of 1.23Gbps over the air in live network conditions.

Specifically, the trial in aggregated 100MHz (using five 20MHz carriers) of Optus’ unique network frequency bands, and also utilised 4x4MIMO and 256QAM technologies to enable higher peak rates.

The firms added that the advances bring theoretical maximum speeds as high as 1.43 Gbps

“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,” said Dennis Wong, Acting Managing Director at Optus Networks.

The trial is a result of a continued partnership between Optus and Huawei that began with the announcement of the world first Gigasite in 2013.

“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 and Optus’ commitment to developing 4.5G technology in Australia,” said James Zhao, CEO of Huawei Australia.

The continued work on 4.5G, evolving towards 5G technology leverages on a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on joint R&D that Optus’ parent firm Singtel signed with Huawei in 2014.

5G will provide the infrastructure to support a networked society for a multitude of devices and applications. Apart from advanced wireless techniques, another key aspect is machine type communications to support the Internet of Things.

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.”

“Singtel continues to pursue leading technologies and is in close collaboration with industry players like Huawei as part of our 5G partnership programs.”

Image credit: Alpha, Creative Commons

14 COMMENTS

  1. Article and impact on revenue (and other failures) already discussed here:
    https://delimiter.com.au/2016/02/18/nbn-raises-possibility-multi-gigabit-symmetric-hfc-speeds/#li-comment-718457

    The very same Huawei that was banned by Gillard/Conroy, making decisions without any knowledge typified that govt’s policy creations such as the NBN.

    Check out the reporting of the time, fanboys shouting down the few posting NBNCo obvious failures:

    “Gillard announced Thursday the rollout of the fibre-optic cable section of the network will see 3.5 million homes and businessesin 1500 towns and suburbs across Australia connected by mid-2015.”
    http://m.theage.com.au/it-pro/government-it/pm-defends-banning-of-chinese-company-20120329-1w0lt.html

    Leaving only one supplier, didn’t NBNCo senior management have history with the remaining supplier?

    • Last I checked, TurnBull upheld the ban on Huawei despite Alexander Downer joining the Huawei board and trying to overturn it.

      Personally I think as long as they passed the same code inspection tests as the UK used, then I had no problem with their use.

    • “Leaving only one supplier, didn’t NBNCo senior management have history with the remaining supplier?”

      As opposed to the current senior management team having history with Telstra and many still having Telstra shares, then going back to the negotiating table with Telstra?

      Yeah, if you’re going to imply conflicts of interest, better make sure “your side” doesn’t too have any…

        • Conflicts of interest are a problem on either side of politics…..

          Yet, I think there were some serious security concerns about Huawei, considering the Chinese Government partly owns all the companies in China.

          As Derek said, I think there could have been a way around it than just simply banning it, but had they put it out to tender and Alcatel still won, would you still claim conflict of interest?

          • I think those “security concerns” came from the US spooks, a lot of other countries don’t have a problem using their gear, and I’ve heard they will even supply the code used in their equipment, so I don’t get what the problem was in that case.

  2. Well, I guess Alan Jones was right all along, Wireless ~IS~ the future! (Lets continue ignoring that Wireless is a shared medium and that fibre could do this 10 years ago……..)

  3. This is all very nice, but will we finally get some decent monthly data quotas?
    250GB + per month? Current mobile broadband data quotas are probably fine for actual ‘mobile’ customers, but nowhere near enough for people using it as a fixed line replacement at home.
    We’re out of range of NBN’s fixed wireless by only a few k’s, (bugger!!!) so hoping this will be our saviour.
    This would be vastly superior to the NBN’s current offering too, if this was to be the case.
    We currently get Telstra’s 4G service, so with any luck, this could help people in our situation.
    Bring on 5G please!

    • “but will we finally get some decent monthly data quotas? 250GB + per month? ”

      Not likely any time soon, the mobile networks are so ridiculously contended that they have to keep data caps low to discourage people from using the network.

    • Is never good for you?

      5g needs a fibre backbone to function properly and data quotas won’t be increasing anytime soon either.

      Plus there are issues with spectrum – if you placed everyone on wireless it becomes unusable.

      This was the beauty of the original FTTP nbn – it would have created a ubiquitous network that would have supported 5g.

      As it is, who knows if the mtm will provide enough bandwidth for 5g?

      There are also questions around how much the monthly access fees will be – 5g hardware won’t be cheap and they will want to recoup costs – as all private business’ should.

      • I know wireless is not a substitute for fibre, and it should never be considered as such. I’m an RF technician by trade, and have worked as a tech in the telecommunications industry, so understand these spectrum issues etc. My point was rather that 5G could be a useful tool to extend a ‘fibre like’ service to people on the network fringe.
        Much like 4G does now, but in a greatly enhanced capacity.
        I’d love to have fibre to the premises too, but being rural (though not remote) I realise it’s not going to happen any time soon, due to construction time, cost etc. We’ve had copper lines here for many decades, so I can’t see why these should one day not be replaced with fibre, or at least to some kind of node, with wireless distribution over the ‘last mile or ten’ per se.

        So the next best option is: terrestrial wireless links, like 4G or 5G.
        As to the cost of the hardware, yes, it will be expensive initially, but these costs come down rapidly like all other technologies, once they’re released en masse.
        Also, being rural I don’t expect lightning fast speeds, but why not utilise a high capacity network like 5G to provide a big increase in data to many more people.
        25 – 50 Mbps, low latency, and ADSL like data plans, and it’d be a great service!
        Just don’t try it in densely populated areas LOL!

  4. mobile is an insecure scam full stop. no amount of fraud is going to improve their white elephant just like alcatels noise reduction scammy technology on copper. the noise will always be there.

    It’s a con job scam designed to suck in the dumb, only a fool would pay theoretically $4000 for 500GB as you would on fixed line. Completely unusable and not considered internet.

    LiFi will hopefully take over wifi and even LTE.

  5. They purposely killed our fibre to supply HFC and ADSL so it wouldn’t compete with this scammy crap.

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