Anritsu Corporation has announced the company’s Conformance Test Systems have achieved the world-first GCF leadership in RF/RRM Conformance Test and Protocol Conformance Test for LTE Rel-10 Carrier Aggregation.

LTE Advanced is the latest 4G high-speed mobile standard now being deployed by global network operators. It uses a new Carrier Aggregation function to support higher data rates.

The LTE Advanced 3GPP-specified Carrier Aggregation function uses several frequency bands as a single band to speed-up both peak and average communications speeds, achieving 300 Mbps download speeds and targeting 1 Gbps in the future.

The explosive increase in mobile data volumes caused by new applications such as video streaming is creating an urgent need for wider bandwidths to handle growing data volumes. Carrier Aggregation is one technology for solving the present problems of inadequate bandwidth for streaming large data volumes caused by narrow frequency bands shared by too many users.

Global network operators are deploying LTE services using Carrier Aggregation, starting in S. Korea and the USA during 2013 and then rolling-out in other countries.

Development of commercial mobile terminals requires objective verification that devices satisfy the 3GPP standards; this is achieved by running RF/RRM Conformance and Protocol Conformance tests using systems approved by the GCF and PTCRB.

Anritsu’sME7873L RF Conformance Test System and ME7834L Protocol Conformance Test System launched support for Carrier Aggregation earlier this year and today’s announcement of Carrier Aggregation GCF approvals give Anritsu the world lead in number of test cases for Band1_5 and Band3_8 as used in S. Korea.

In addition to the GCF position, Anritsu has also received the most PTCRB test case approvals for Band2_17 and Band4_17as used in NorthAmerica making ME7873L and ME7834L the foremost device approval solutions for Carrier Aggregation.

Anritsu will continue expanding its number of GCF/PTCRB Carrier Aggregation test case validations building on the established market leadership position in GCF & PTCRB approvals across LTE Protocol, RF and RRM conformance testing.