GIFT NDOLWANE
JOHANNESBURG – IN the first such exercise in the continent, MTN and Ericsson have successfully trialled Long Term Evolution-Unlicensed (LTE-U).

LTE-U, which is a mobile technology innovation that enables higher data speeds, which increase network capacity and significantly enhance customer experience, has been trialled at MTN’s flagship channel store in Morningside, Johannesburg.

Officials said it demonstrated MTN’s constant drive towards introducing innovative technologies to help improve its network quality experience.

“This trial supports MTN’s strategy to drive sustainable growth by driving growth in voice, while developing new opportunities in data, enterprise, financial services and content. This innovation shows that MTN is within the cutting edge of world developments,” Krishna Chetty, Acting Chief Technology Officer, MTN South Africa, said.

Henrik Linnet, Head of Practice Mobile Broadband, Ericsson Sub-Saharan Africa, said this was the first LTE-U trial and first enhanced Carrier Sensing Adaptive Transmission functionality demonstrated in Africa.

“Through this, we demonstrated that LTE is a good neighbor to Wi-Fi. We are proud to have teamed up with our longstanding partner to demonstrate this service in South Africa on the way to future 5G deployments,” Linnet said.

The LTE-U trial was completed by aggregating 10MHz of MTN’s licensed 1800MHz spectrum and 20MHz within the unlicensed 5GHz band.

The trial achieved a throughput of more than 200Mbps. The aggregation of licensed and unlicensed spectrum in indoor small cells is a key enabler for 5G.