UK-based Cobham Wireless announced that its TM500 network test system now supports the validation of 4G networks and base stations using carrier aggregation of up to five individual component carriers (5CC).
The TM500 gear allows early-stage testing and validation of LTE-A network performance and user quality of service in loaded networks. The new feature enables mobile operators to accelerate the time-to-market for 1 Gbps LTE-A services.
Efforts are underway in the market to drive LTE speeds to 1 Gbps. Telstra and Ericsson recently demonstrated speeds of 1 Gbps on a live LTE-A network in Australia. Mobile Operators with limited contiguous frequency allocations can maximize 4G data speeds by combining up to five spectrum bands to achieve an aggregated bandwidth of up to 100 MHz.
Shusina Ngwa, product manager at Cobham Wireless
The TM500 network test system is the first commercial infrastructure test platform to support Release 12 5CC carrier aggregation for emulating mobile devices up to Category 16, along with support for carrier frequencies up to 6 GHz.
