Consumers in Sweden were the first in the world to experience commercial LTE services.  Ericsson on Monday demonstrated the next step of LTE, known as LTE Advanced, to the Swedish Post and Telecom Agency (PTS). The demonstration, held in Kista, Sweden, featured speeds more than 10 times faster than those currently experienced by LTE consumers in Sweden.

The demo system was based on Ericsson’s multi-mode, multi-standard radio base station, RBS 6000. Live traffic was streamed between the RBS and a moving van from which network performance could be monitored. In the demonstration, 60MHz of aggregated bandwidth was used, compared to the 20MHz maximum that is currently possible using LTE. In the downlink, 8x8 MIMO was used.

The system, based on commercial hardware, was operating on a test frequency provided by the PTS. This enabled Ericsson to demonstrate LTE Advanced functionality such as carrier aggregation of 3 x 20MHz (60MHz aggregated) over the air in a mobile environment for the first time.