Vodafone has today announced that their carrier aggregation rollout has been completed across metropolitan areas, meshing their re-farmed 850MHz network with their existing 4G 1800MHz network to create a super fast LTE-Advanced, or as they call it 4G+ network for customers in metro areas.
The new carrier aggregation gives the benefit of the low-band 850MHz network which provides better building penetration and hence coverage indoors, with the higher-band 1800Mhz network which provides greater coverage outdoors. The new network is aimed at providing better coverage, which Vodafone Chief Technology Officer Benoit Hanssen says will reach ‘95% of the metropolitan population and several major regional centres, to meet the rapidly growing demand for data’.
At this stage, Vodafone lists Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth as their areas which are supporting 4G+ carrier aggregation, so if you’re in these areas on the Vodafone network you may notice the difference. Vodafone doesn’t yet show the 4G+ areas on their coverage map, but that should change as the carrier aggregated network availability expands.
Vodafone has noticed that there is definitely an increase in demand for data, and the demand for data on 4G is increasing with more than 50% of Vodafone customers now on the 4G network. Using Carrier Aggregation means that Vodafone can supply data to customers faster and more reliably.
If you have a compatible mobile phone, you won’t need to do anything to take advantage of the new carrier aggregation, with the phone doing all the work to connect to the network to provide the best speeds. At this stage only the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy Note Edge are compatible, but Vodafone will be adding more compatible handsets in the coming months.
If you’ve noticed some faster, more reliable speeds on your mobile of late on the Vodafone network, this update is likely the cause. Enjoy.
Just like to point out that the Sony Xperia Z3 model D6653 is also compatible with LTE Band 3 (850MHz) and will also experience the benefits of carrier aggregation.
Evidenced Here: http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/1196590249
Where are these several major regional centres?
I’m still waiting for 4g to arrive in regional nsw!
My nexus 6 seems a little faster.
The Nexus 6 doesn’t support CA, does it?
This will most likely be a placebo effect or the fact that less phones are connected to the same bands as your N6 — they all jumped to the new 850 meaning more 1800/2100 for you.
I wonder how much benefit there’ll be if Vodafone is currently only using 5MHz of 850MHz spectrum.