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Optus has today announced that they’ve begun trialling 4.5G technology – also known as LTE-Advanced Pro – at their Gigasite in Newcastle, testing technology provided by partner Huawei and they’ve achieved some impressive results.

The trials achieved download speeds of 1.41Gbps with Optus saying they could acheieve theoretical maximum speeds of up to 1.43Gbps. The trial saw a peak download speed of 1.23Gbps over the air in live network conditions using a combination of Carrier Aggregation, Higher Level Modulation, and 4X4 MIMO.

Dennis Wong, Optus Networks acting Managing Director said of the trial

We continue to utilise our network and spectrum assets to test our network of the future and prepare for 5G. By 2020, 5G will be here and we are committed to identify ways to prepare our network to support this new technology and further improve customer experience.

James Zhao, Huawei Australia CEO said

This field trial in Newcastle is a first and important milestone as a direct result of our local investments in R&D here in Australia. This joint trial represents a significant advance toward fulfilling Huawei’s & Optus’ commitment to developing 4.5G technology in Australia.

The move to trial 4.5G is part of a move towards eventually implementing 5G, with Huawei and Optus parent company Singtel entering into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on joint R&D with Huawei in 2014.

Tay Soo Meng, Singtel Group Chief Technology Officer said,

As we work towards 5G we expect significant demand for cost-effective connection to a multitude of sensors and devices, and it is important that operators deliver new capabilities to enable the new connected ecosystem to support the growth and innovation of M2M services.

It’s simply a trial at this stage, but lays the foundation for launching technological leaps further down the tracks. Huawei and Optus are doing some pretty interesting stuff here, and well, we can’t wait to see it live in Australia for everyone.

Source: Optus.
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    Dano3333

    What exactly is a Gagasite and where is it in Newcastle?

    No_Underscore

    LTE-Advanced Pro
    What a name… Should have just been “LTE-Advanced-er”

    phantomsofthedesert

    That sounds like great news to be able to download at 1.43 Gbps. my concern is at this speed and with mobile going to non SD cards Does that mean we will finally see 256Gb of internal storage or greater. Personally I don’t see the need for me at the moment. but don’t get me wrong I certainly will welcome the speed as I hope this translate to better internet for home use. I can see the day when we will have this technology for home use that will be better than NBN. I have always said why don’t we… Read more »

    Cameron

    Do we need an NBN then?

    Gregory Williams

    Exactly what I was about to comment. I wonder what the ping is like.

    Kendozaaa

    it’ll be 1.43 GB at optimal conditions (ie right under the tower, with no-one else using the node). the speed will drop off pretty quickly, the further away you get. you’ll also need a 4×4 + 256QAM compatible handset, of which there are none currently.

    chris

    and you connect a couple of people to the tower and you max out the capacity.
    They will need multiple terrabytes of speed connected to a tower like that, how do you think they are going to get the data there, via the NBN. Wireless will not replace the NBN and proves we need it even more. This discussion has been had so many times but still we get people asking the same question.