Ericsson and Unitel, Angola’s top telco have demoed LTE Advanced (LTE-A) Carrier Aggregation technology with 1800MHz and 900MHz spectrum bands live in Luanda, Angola, carrying commercial traffic.
LTE-A is said to be the next step in the evolution of high-speed mobile broadband services, enabling operators to make the most of their existing spectrum assets by combining multiple spectrum bands to enable higher mobile broadband download speeds.
In a release statement, Amilcar Safeca, Deputy CEO of Unitel said, “With the global leap toward higher data access speeds for sophisticated video and mobility services, we are enhancing our network to ensure we continually provide high-quality services to our high-demanding subscriber base.”
Safeca said the demo promises the launch of the service in Angola soon. If it goes live this year, Unitel won’t be the first to launch the high speed spectrum bands, especially in Australia, Portugal and South Korea.
Why launch LTE-A in Africa? Over six African countries already have LTE, therefore move to LTE-A is the welcome.
Magnus Mchunguzi, Vice President, Ericsson sub-Saharan Africa says LTE-A technology will help operators increase their network capacity and enhance the mobile broadband user experience with speeds up to 1Gbps.
