Ericsson and Hong Kong' SmarTone today announced successful trial of Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) technology in a live over-the-air demonstration in Hong Kong. LAA allows the use of unlicensed spectrum in the 5GHz band in combination with licensed spectrum. Demonstration was conducted in SmarTone live network with 70 MHz of aggregated licensed and unlicensed spectrum, showcasing download speeds at around 800Mbps.

SmarTone used one LTE 10MHz band aggregated with three 20MHz bands of unlicensed spectrum for the trial. Together with 4CC carrier aggregation, 4x4 MIMO and 256QAM technologies, the trial used a Qualcomm® SnapdragonTM X16 LTE mobile test device and Ericsson’s micro Radio 2205 for LAA.  Future enhancement of LAA includes 5CC carrier aggregation support in 2018, and allows the download speeds to exceed 1Gbps.

LAA is a key technology as operators evolve their networks to achieve Gigabit LTE. The milestone requires more spectrum than what most operators have access to, and by opening up previously untapped resources of unlicensed spectrum using LAA, operators can deliver speeds once thought only possible over fiber.