Today, Verizon said that it worked with Samsung Electronics Americas, Motorola Mobility and Qualcomm to demonstrate 5G peak speeds of 4.2 Gbps on its live 5G network in Texas. It did this using carrier aggregation, a technology that combines multiple channels of spectrum. The four companies combined eight separate channels of mmWave spectrum to achieve the multi-gigabit speeds on Motorola’s upcoming flagship smartphone.
“Using 5G carrier aggregation, we are able to achieve unprecedented mobile speeds and bring the massive bandwidth available with mmWave spectrum to life,” said Adam Koeppe, senior vice president of technology planning at Verizon, in a statement. “Eight channel carrier aggregation using mmWave will be widely available on the 5G network in 2020.”
Verizon’s trial took place using a commercial network cell site in Texas, which aggregated 800 MHz of 28 GHz band spectrum using Samsung’s 5G new radio (NR) 28 Ghz access unit. Verizon said the Samsung access unit has been commercially deployed by Verizon.
RELATED: Verizon first to deploy Samsung’s new 5G NR Access Unit
Samsung unveiled its 5G NR access unit for millimeter wave spectrum at Mobile World Congress Los Angeles in October.
The Motorola device used in the Verizon trial is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Mobile Platform with the X55 5G Modem-RF System.
Just last week Qualcomm announced its new Snapdragon X60 Modem-RF System for 5G devices. The X60 will support spectrum aggregation across all key 5G bands and combinations, including millimeter wave and sub-6 GHz. But for the Verizon trial, Motorola used Qualcomm’s prior X55 5G Modem-RF System.
RELATED: Qualcomm launches Snapdragon X60 with mmWave and sub-6 band aggregation
Verizon has been working with Motorola devices for its 5G Ultra Wideband network ever since it launched its first two markets in April 2019 in select areas of Chicago and Minneapolis. Customers in those first markets were able to access Verizon’s 5G network with the Motorola moto z3 smartphone paired with the Motorola 5G moto mod to create a 5G-enabled phone.
But for the trial in Texas, Verizon used Motorola’s upcoming “flagship” device, which Motorola has not yet unveiled.