Ericsson said that it successfully supported Telstra, Australia's leading telecommunication operator, in further enhancing its LTE Advanced (LTE-A) commercial service network.

Telstra and Ericsson successfully demonstrated 300 Mbps downlink speeds for a data transfer across Telstra's live network. The demonstration used Ericsson's commercially released LTE Advanced software which aggregated 20 MHz bandwidth within the 1800 MHz band and 20 MHz bandwidth within the 2600 MHz band. The demonstration included downloading video content from while measuring download throughput.

Mike Wright, Telstra Executive Director Networks, said that the tests were an important foundational step towards being able to deploy Cat 6 LTE Advanced Carrier Aggregation when Telstra receives access to the 700MHz spectrum freed up by the Digital Dividend.
 
"The trials we conducted overnight demonstrate the ability to aggregate two channels of 20 MHz spectrum on our commercial network. While the download speeds we achieved of 300 Mbps are very impressive, for Telstra the main outcome is that we will be able to build out the capacity in our network to manage the future wireless data needs of our customers and continue to deliver them the most reliable network speeds and experience," said Wright.
 
Ericsson said that operators who want to offer a superior user experience need to build networks that provide both excellent voice and data coverage so that users can run all their favorite apps, including video, on smartphones and tablets. 
 
LTE Advanced enables operators to deliver even higher performance mobile data transfer when customers need it. Operators will be able to provide subscribers throughout the network with twice the data speeds that they are receiving today by joining 20 MHz in one band to 20 MHz in another. In ideal conditions, with speeds of up to 300 Mbps, consumers will be able to download a large 800 MB file in approximately 21 seconds.
 
Thomas Norén, Head of Product Area Radio at Ericsson, said: "The delivery of a superior mobile broadband experience remains key as smart device users depend more upon mobile broadband for everyday life. We also look forward to continuing our work with global chipset and handset manufacturers as the Carrier Aggregation ecosystem evolves further."