Optus, last week announced that it has successfully deployed the tri-band Carrier Aggregation (CA) technology in Newcastle suburbs of Lambton, Mayfield and Mayfield West based on a single Frequency-Division Duplexing(FDD) band and dual Time-Division Duplexing(TDD) bands, boasting speeds up to 317 Mbps on its live network using a category 9 device.
The addition of this tri-band CA technology to the Optus 4G Plus network at these locations means that Optus customers with the latest category 9 smartphones, such as the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+ and Samsung Galaxy Note 5 that were just released, can start enjoying much higher speeds on their mobile broadband connectivity.
The Operator claims to be the first in the world to roll out the tri-band CA technology on a commercial network with a commercial device using a combination of 20+20MHz of 2300 MHz and 15MHz paired of 1800 MHz spectrum.
The Operator is planning to switch on the tri-band CA technology in the Melbourne commercial business district (CBD) in early September and roll out the service to the Sydney CBD early next year, followed by Brisbane and Adelaide in mid-2016. Optus has earlier turned on the dual-band CA on its 4G Plus network in selected areas of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra, Hobart and Darwin and 20 other major regional centres.
Dennis Wong, Acting Managing Director Optus Networks
It is a more efficient use of our spectrum bands and will provide a more consistent and better experience for our customers. While we look forward to 3x CA in category 9 devices, current Optus customers with category 6 devices can already enjoy the 2x Carrier Aggregation2 (2x CA) technology which are currently our fastest ever 4G speeds.
