AIS, Thailand’s leading and largest mobile network operator, recently announced that it is pleased to collaborate with Qualcomm Technologies to deliver LTE Advanced (LTE-A) to Thai consumers.
In addition to extending AIS’ technology leadership in Thailand, the collaboration will also put AIS at the forefront of LTE-A technology in Southeast Asia, reinforcing the mobile operator’s capability and readiness to support the latest smartphones at their full capacity and to create an enhanced mobile broadband experience for consumers.
End of last year, Qualcomm Engineering Service Group (ESG) has worked with AIS to conduct testing of 256-QAM on the downlink and 64-QAM on the uplink on AIS’ network. Test results showed that the mobile internet downlink rates increased by approximately 30% and the mobile internet uplink rates increased by approximately 50% for both drive tests and stationary tests, said AIS in a statement. A significant enhancement in throughput was also observed in the uplink with 2x carrier aggregation (UL 2xCA) while delivering the content from the device back to the cloud.
The latest collaboration between Qualcomm Technologies and AIS focuses on the most innovative features in LTE-A for AIS’ LTE-A networks on the downlink. This includes downlink 3x carrier aggregation (DL 3xCA) which delivers higher data rates and improved capacity, and 4x4 MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) to support downloading data on four antennas simultaneously for lightning-fast connections, quicker network response times, and richer app content. Based on the field test results, DL 3xCA produced gains proportional to the added spectrum bandwidth, and 4x4 MIMO devices would benefit with up to a 50% additional gain.
Suwit Pruckwattananon, Country Manager, Thailand & Myanmar, Qualcomm
With 4G adoption ready to become more widespread in the Thai market, we want to ensure that customers are experiencing the best that AIS’ network has to offer. Qualcomm Technologies continues to lead the evolution of LTE-A with new innovations that deliver a faster, enhanced mobile broadband experience, as well as solutions to efficiently meet the explosion in mobile data traffic.
Kriengsak Wanichnatee, CTO, AIS
With AIS 4G covering 98% of Thailand, our focus this year is on maximizing the performance of our mobile network to bring the best connection speeds and capacity to our consumers. At AIS, we recognize that having a good mobile device is as important as having a reliable mobile network and for this reason, we work closely with some of the industry’s leading technology partners to run performance tests for devices before launch.
