Telia and Ericsson have launched what it claims to be the first 5G carrier aggregation trial in Norway, with the aim of supporting Telia’s nationwide 5G rollout, Ericsson said in a release.
As part of Telia’s ambition to bring nationwide 5G coverage to Norway by 2023, Telia and Ericsson have started a 5G New Radio (NR) TDD-FDD carrier aggregation for coverage extension trial in Lillestrøm, a town located next to Oslo, the capital city of Norway.
Ericsson explained that carrier aggregation technology will enable the Nordic carrier to maximize its existing spectrum and extend coverage in the mid-band frequencies (3.6 GHz), boosting capacity and increasing peak throughput for faster data speeds.
The solution further enhances the 5G user experience by extending coverage of the mid-band TDD bands using the uplink of the FDD band.
Also, Telia and Ericsson are expected to deliver 5G to 19 more cities across Norway by mid-2021, with 50% of the country projected to have coverage by the end of this year.
“With this new technology, our mobile and FWA customers will experience enhanced capacity, coverage, and speed on our fast-expanding 5G network. We will begin to roll out carrier aggregation in our network as soon as we have completed the on-going testing phase,” said Espen Weum, acting head of infra at Telia Norway.
“Initial test results from our Lillestrøm trial show an increase in 5G coverage of over 50% in the 3.6 GHz band, which really shows the potential of 5G carrier aggregation. We will also be able to considerably improve indoor coverage with this solution,” he added.
“As a game-changer for utilizing valuable mid-band spectrum, 5G Carrier Aggregation will help meet the growing demand for mobile data and give Telia’s customers access to more bandwidth at greater speed,” said Daniel Ode, head of global customer unit Telia Company at Ericsson.
In May 2020, Telia launched its 5G network in Norway, with initial deployments in Lillestrøm and parts of Groruddalen in the greater Oslo region.
In 2019, Telia had selected Ericsson to be its sole radio access network (RAN) supplier to in Norway. Under the agreement, Ericsson not only supplied hardware and software solutions, but has also been working with Telia Norway to modernize the operator’s entire radio network as part of the move to 5G.
The deployment utilized Ericsson’s dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS) software, which allows carriers to share existing spectrum for both LTE and 5G.
