Ukraine’s lifecell and Huawei claim peak LTE-A Pro speeds

Ukrainian mobile operator lifecell has announced the results of an LTE-Advanced Pro (LTE-A Pro) test with Huawei in which with the partners claim a peak download speed of 1.5Gbps. They have aggregated five 20MHz frequency division duplex (FDD) spectrum blocks in the 800MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz, 2100MHz and 2600MHz bands using lifecell equipment and technology provided by Huawei.

Lifecell is the first company on the Ukrainian telecommunication market to be ready to launch a third generation network in Ukraine with 3G+ technology and 3-Carrier high speed data packet access (HSDPA) expansion.

Lifecell claims that its network can reach the maximum download speed at 63.3 Mbit/s and lifecell is testing the potential and speed levels of 4G and 4.5G technology. LTE-Advanced Pro is the next wireless upgrade beyond LTE or 4G which is faster, higher quality and efficient in spectrum usage. This technology is targeted to improve the network data rate, expand customer experience and vertical applications usage.

Lifecell CEO, Burak Ersoy, said: “We continue to develop our network assets to test the future opportunities and prepare for the launch of the networks of next generation - LTE. For 4G introduction the Ukrainian market should be ready in terms of regulation and 4G-devices penetration - for example, our network with the highest penetration of smartphones has only a few percent of devices supporting the LTE standard. But there are no obstacles from the technical side as we can see excellent results of 4.5G tests which mean that our network is ready for innovative technologies of the future.”

The speed was measured on a connection between an eNodeB base station and a mobile terminal under test conditions. Ukrainian operators are still waiting for 4G licensing to be implemented but are aiming to be ready to launch LTE as soon as they are issued. Lifecell’s rival MTS Ukraine (Vodafone) recently tested LTE with Nokia.