MTS trials live Licensed Assisted Access

• Ericsson, MTS and Qualcomm have successfully trialed Licensed Assisted Access technology in a live over-the-air demonstration in Russia
• Trial marks the first time a commercial Ericsson product has been used for Rel-13 LAA, and is the first of its kind in Russia
• LAA leverages the 5GHz unlicensed spectrum band together with licensed spectrum to deliver enhanced performance for mobile device users

Together with MTS, the largest mobile network operator in Russia, and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) has conducted the first successful live trial with a commercial small cell product of Rel-13 Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) technology in Russia.

The demonstration was conducted in an MTS test lab over a live network and used Ericsson’s Pico RBS 6402 small cell and a Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ X16 LTE mobile test device. With LAA, data speeds are boosted using unlicensed spectrum together with licensed spectrum.

The amount of licensed spectrum is limited, and the need for spectrum is huge. The latest Ericsson Mobility Report forecasts that smartphones will be using 11 Gigabytes of data a month by 2022. This puts enormous strain on operators to meet the demands for performance in mobile connectivity for their subscribers.

Andrei Ushatskiy, MTS Vice President, Technology and IT, says: “Delivering the level of mobile connectivity our subscribers expect, across a wide variety of environments, is a primary focus of MTS. This successful demonstration is the first of its kind in Russia, and shows our commitment to exceeding our customers’ expectations with enhanced experiences.”

Yulia Klebanova, vice president, business development, Qualcomm Europe Inc., says: “LAA enables more operators globally to offer Gigabit LTE, which is an essential foundation when introducing the 5G mobile experience, and we look forward to working with infrastructure vendors, OEMs, and network operators to advance mobile connectivity for subscribers across the world.”

Arun Bansal, Senior Vice President, Europe & Latin America, Ericsson, says: “LAA uses unlicensed spectrum to boost data speeds, offering subscribers the chance to enjoy enhanced LTE experiences on their devices. This technology allows LTE and Wi-Fi users superior performance in both indoor and outdoor environments by sharing the spectrum in unlicensed bands.”

Ericsson’s RBS 6402 is a high-performance indoor Pico Cell offering three standards (LTE, WCDMA and Wi-Fi), 10 frequency bands and up to 300 Mbps LTE carrier aggregation. The flexibility, cost-effectiveness and performance in a tablet-sized footprint make it optimal for smaller buildings.