Nokia said it plans to launch so-called 4.9G technology in late 2017.
Nokia said it has signed contracts for the rollout of “4.5G” networks with 110 service providers, according to international press reports.
“If you want to create a fully autonomous environment then you need ‘5G’ for the latency, but if you want to support video downloads and mundane mobile broadband services then 4.5G, 4.5G Pro and 4.9G can provide significant capabilities for that,” Samih Elhage, president of Nokia’s mobile networks business, was quoted as saying.
Nokia previously said 4.5G Pro technology can provide 10-times the speed of initial 4G networks by allowing service providers to combine paired, unpaired and unlicensed spectrum.
The firm is also working on a technology dubbed 4.9G, which is said to allow users to maintain a continuous 5G service experience using an evolved LTE network to complement 5G radio coverage. The platform is said to include features to increase capacity and speeds to several gigabits per second, including allowing additional numbers of carriers to be aggregated, opening the door to additional licensed and unlicensed spectrum. Nokia expects to introduce 4.9G in late 2017.
These variations on 4G are included in the LTE-Advanced standard, also known as Release 13 and 14.
Nokia, Ooredoo Qatar carry out 4.5G Pro demo in Doha
In related news, Nokia and mobile operator Ooredoo Qatar said they achieved speeds of up to 1 Gbps in a demonstration application of the vendor’s 4.5G Pro technology using three-carrier aggregation, 256 quadrature amplitude modulation, 4×4 multiple-input/multiple-output antenna technology and Nokia’s AirScale radio platform.
The demo took place at the mobile operator’s headquarters in Doha, Qatar. Ooredoo Qatar initially launched LTE services in April 2016, and currently offers service using spectrum in the 800 MHz, 1800 MHz and 2.6 GHz bands.
