Qualcomm and T-Mobile demonstrated new gigabit LTE technologies in an event in San Jose today. T-Mobile’s big announcement today was that these technologies are now available in 430 markets nationwide with LAA support.
T-Mobile has built towers across the country, bought new low-band spectrum from Verizon. A new LTE network that enhances coverage in buildings and rural areas.
An increasing number of devices on networks with new trends in mobile video streaming. Putting a new kind of stress on mobile networks. All networks now employ some kind of traffic-management and global LTE speeds are down.
Networks are employing new LTE technologies that make better use of existing spectrum and hyper-local “small-cell” sites, and T-Mobile is taking that mission to heart.
Qualcomm and T-Mobile demonstrated new gigabit LTE technologies in an event in San Jose today. Gigabit LTE is a catch-all for a series of new LTE technologies. More significantly, they can also increase capacity on a network, helping mitigate congestion and meaning that everyone can still enjoy a workable LTE connection.
However, aggregating two carriers together, is already in widespread use. But modern phones are capable of using four carriers at the same time.
Multiple input multiple output (MIMO)
Carrier aggregation taken to the next level with the help of another new tech being rolled out. LTE-Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) combines the usual LTE frequencies with unlicenses 5GHz spectrum, the same frequency that your Wi-Fi network uses. 5GHz signals are subject to more interference and travel shorter distances, but are capable of much higher transfer speeds.
Multiple input multiple output (MIMO) is another new-but-rare technology T-Mobile is pushing out at speed. It increases the overall bitrate available by combining data streams from multiple antennas, and partners well with carrier aggregation. If carrier aggregation is like adding extra lanes to a highway, MIMO is like stacking a whole new highway on top.
The final piece of the puzzle is 256 QAM. Quadrature Amplitude Modulation is the means by which a carrier signal can transfer data, and the 256 means 256 distinct symbols that can be used to encode data.
