Nokia Networks has held the first 4×4 MIMO trial in South East Asia, demonstrating LTE-Advanced speeds of 600MBps.
The vendor held the trial with StarHub, Singapore’s second biggest operator. The two companies also tested three band carrier aggregation using a commercial smartphone at StarHub’s headquarters.
The 4×4 MIMO technology uses four transmit and four receive antennas, which doubles download speeds between the base station and mobile device. Nokia Networks said the technology will be crucial to meet the demand of hundreds of thousands of applications using a mobile network, as smartphone growth continues to surge.
The Finnish vendor has said MIMO will also play a central role in 5G networks. In April it demonstrated speeds of 10GBps on its 2×2 MIMO systems, which it said could be used for 3D movies and 8K quality video.
Ray Owen, Head of Singapore, Philippines, Australia and New Zealand, Nokia Networks, commented: “The demand for data continues to peak, even as operators evolve their networks to address the related opportunities and challenges. With this trial, we have proven that our technology is suitably equipped to help StarHub in coping with the forthcoming data deluge, a scenario wherein networks have to be ready to deal with download demands of gigabytes per person per day.”
Mock Pak Lum, Chief Technology Officer, StarHub, added: “4G is still on the evolution path, and we are readying ourselves to meet the ever-growing demand for bandwidth-heavy applications and services on faster, more advanced smartphones. Through this demonstration of our LTE-Advanced capabilities, we want to reiterate our focus on leveraging latest technologies to provide our customers with the best possible service experience.”
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