NSN claims new 2.6Gbps mobile data speed record

Nokia Soluations and Networks (NSN) claims to have broken the world record on mobile download speeds, hitting 2.6 gigabit/s over a single sector, in trials with US telco Sprint. 

The NSN Flexi Multiradio 10 base station used for the speed trials; source: vendor.

NSN plans to showcase carrier or frequency band aggregation at the Mobile World Conference (MWC14) in Barcelona, to show off large data speed performance increases.

NSN and Sprint used commercially available gear and aggregated 120MHz of spectrum for the trial, which utilised time-division technology as opposed to frequency-division.

The 3GPP Long Term Evolution Advanced (LTE-A) specification allows for a maximum of five carriers to be aggregated, for a total of 100MHz of bandwidth.

At MWC14, NSN will also demonstrate three carrier spectrum aggregation, using 60MHz bandwidth for a more modest 450Mbps per-user downlink speed, again using commercially available technology.

As part of expanding capacity on LTE-A networks, NSN is presenting a dynamically managed enhanced intercell interference coordination heterogenous small cell solution at MWC14 for improved load balancing with operator's larger macro networks.

While local network providers have only just finished launching 150Mbps networks, earlier this year, South Korean telco SK Telecom said it will launch commercial 300Mbps LTE-A service.

SK Telecom will aggregate one 20MHz carrier with two 10MHz ones, for a total of 40MHz of bandwidth in the 850 and 1800MHz bands.