Nokia pledged to showcase industry-first LTE Advanced and LTE Advanced Pro innovations that improve the capacity of TD- and FDD-LTE networks at the forthcoming Mobile World Congress.
The vendor said it will be the first to demonstrate solutions that enable operators to increase the number of users they can serve without the need to deploy extra base stations by increasing throughput across a cell's coverage area. Nokia added that the innovations in its showcase are mostly software based, meaning the updates can be applied to existing infrastructure and cloud-based configurations.
Among the technologies due to be demonstrated are 3D beamforming, which Nokia explained combines vertical and horizontal beams to maximise signal levels in TD-LTE Advanced Pro networks while also minimising inter-cell interference. Outdoor trials on commercial base stations have shown 3D Beamforming can deliver a four-fold increase in uplink throughput and a three-fold gain in the downlink, Nokia stated.
Nokia also said it will demonstrate intelligent beamforming comprising eight transmission and four receive antennas that it said doubles cell edge rates on TD-LTE networks. The 8x4 Intelligent Beamforming approach delivers an average 50 per cent improvement in sector throughput, and Nokia said the approach is most useful for high bands with greater coverage and capacity.
FDD-LTE innovations include uplink carrier aggregation and 64QAM modulation, which Nokia plans to offer as software upgrades to boost the peak data rates in the networks to up to 150 Mbps.
Nokia will also demonstrate inter-site carrier aggregation of TDD and FDD carriers from different base stations -- an approach the vendor stated can provide high throughput at the cell edge using existing release-10 compatible devices.
Tero Peltola, head of FDD and TDD LTE product management at Nokia, said the 3D Beamforming method "is an early innovation" that has been tested extensively in China, while its carrier aggregation developments are the vendor's response "to the need for more capacity."
In a statement, Nokia explained that LTE Advanced Pro is a 3GPP-defined technology designed to cater for the nascent Internet of Things (IoT), intelligent traffic systems, and public safety and critical communications. The technology is designed to increase user data rates to several Gbps, reduce latency to a few milliseconds, offer access to unlicensed 5 GHz spectrum, and increase network efficiency.
The vendor said it has already demonstrated a throughput of 4.1 Gbps in tests of LTE Advanced Pro TDD-FDD carrier aggregation on its commercial Flexi Multiradio 10 base stations conducted with China Mobile and Ooredoo.
For more:
- see this Nokia announcement
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