Ericsson and Angola's leading telecommunications provider Unitel, successfully demonstrated LTE Advanced (LTE-A) Carrier Aggregation technology for the first time in Africa.
 
The demonstration was made on both 1800MHz and 900MHz spectrum bands on a commercial network, using a commercial terminal, and took place on December 18, when Unitel transferred data across its live network in Luanda, Angola carrying commercial traffic.
 
LTE Carrier Aggregation is 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.
 
Amilcar Safeca, Deputy CEO of Unitel says: “Unitel is always innovating to enhance the customer experience. With the global leap towards 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. With this demo we are well on the way to launching in the near future the most advanced mobile network in Angola and perhaps Africa. We are working with Ericsson to make this happen.”
 
Magnus Mchunguzi, Vice President Ericsson sub-Saharan Africa says: “Using LTE Advanced technology, operators can increase their network capacity and enhance Mobile Broadband user experience, enabling up to 1Gbps data rates in the future. This demo places Unitel on the very limited list of operators in the world to demonstrate LTE Advanced in a live network using a commercial terminal. We are very proud to have partnered with Unitel in this achievement, further extending our long-standing relationship with Unitel.”
 
Across the region and the globe, many operators have cleared spectrum in the 1800MHz and 900MHz bands as they migrate subscribers from 2G to 3G or 4G. Ericsson is also supporting the deployment of LTE Advanced Carrier Aggregation on other spectrum bands in other countries such as South Korea, Australia, and Portugal.
 
Ericsson is the market leader in LTE. Today, approximately 50 percent of the world’s LTE smartphone traffic is handled by Ericsson networks, which is more than double the traffic of our closest competitor.