Etisalat, Huawei Complete Dynamic Spectrum Sharing Test Between GSM and LTE in 1800 MHz Band

Etisalat Misr and Huawei have completed what they claim as the world’s first verification of the CloudAIR GL15MHz spectrum dynamic sharing solution on Etisalat Misr's 1800 MHz network in Cairo, Egypt.

The solution enables spectrum dynamic sharing between GSM and LTE with overlap between the two technologies, which increases both LTE data rate and cell capacity available in the 1800 MHz spectrum allocation.

Compared to LTE 10MHz, the average user throughput has increased by 20% on downlink, while peak throughput reached 92Mbps. Compared to GSM 5MHz and LTE 15MHz without the CloudAIR feature, the GSM KPI remains stable without degradation.

Etisalat Misr launched 4G services in November 2016 and currently serves 3.4 million LTE users, with the largest share of those users in Egypt. As users increasingly migrate to LTE, effective allocation of spectrum resources to handle the growing LTE data traffic has become a priority for Etisalat Misr. The CloudAIR solution adopts Huawei’s proprietary algorithms to free operators from the restrictions of standard LTE bandwidth.

The solution ensures that scattered spectrum resources are fully utilized to deliver higher data rates and better user experience by increasing flexibility in the Resource Block allocation and spectrum allocation used by LTE.

This concept also maintains sufficient GSM channels to carry 2G CS traffic. The test cases show that GL spectrum sharing allows for an approximately 20% increase in average downlink user throughput, compared with LTE 10MHz bandwidth.

Peter Zhou, CMO, Huawei Wireless Solutions 
CloudAIR is the best proof of Huawei's continuous innovation in the wireless domain. This solution accelerates the full convergence of multi-band and multi-RAT networks to achieve the best performance of the entire network.