Vodacom has made history by becoming the first operator in South Africa to activate 3-band carrier-aggregation on its commercial network.
On 16 March, Vodacom activated its commercial LTE-Advanced (4G+) site in Llandudno, Cape Town – which combines three frequency bands into a single band.
A total bandwidth of 25MHz – with 10MHz on LTE-1800, 10MHz on LTE-2100, and 5MHz on LTE-900 – is used for this configuration.
In a test performed using a Samsung Galaxy S7, which supports carrier-aggregation, Vodacom achieved a download speed of 172Mbps.
Why Llandudno was used
Vodacom said Llandudno is geographically unique – an isolated bay area with little line-of-sight to other populated areas of the Cape Peninsula
“There are also steep hills and mountains separating it from neighbouring sites in areas such as Hout Bay and Camps Bay,” said Vodacom.
This presents an opportunity to re-farm spectrum for LTE without needing to do so in neighbouring areas.
“This shows what is possible today with existing technology if enough spectrum is available,” said Vodacom.
The operator said it is difficult to replicate these results in other areas, as spectrum re-farming is not possible without affecting service quality to existing users.
Source: mybroadband
