The two firms successfully verified 3 Component Carrier Aggregation (3CC CA) in the trial which will allow operators to reach higher throughputs and better coverage by combining different spectrum frequencies to efficiently use their spectrum assets.
Mark Atkinson, SVP of radio access networks at Nokia, said: “Nokia is the market leader in implementing 5G Carrier Aggregation solutions for different spectrum combinations.
“It has been exciting to support our trusted partner A1 in this trial showcasing how Carrier Aggregation is a major stepping stone for reaching Multi-Gigabit 5G data rates and enabling radio network efficiencies.”
The trial utilised Nokia’s AirScale baseband, a 5G smartphone and a commercial 5G CPE over A1 Austria’s 5G network.
It combines two mid-band carriers in the 3.5GHz TDD band and one capacity carrier in the 2100MHz FDD band for a total bandwidth of 160MHz by using CA technology.
CA can also be used to combine low-band spectrum with mid-band spectrum for increased coverage range of the high downlink data rates.
Nokia says it is a key technology that will allow operators to optimise 5G spectrum without compromising performance and can help bring down the cost of deploying 5G networks.
