5G will make big moves across many markets in Europe and Latin America this year following the recent completion of many 5G mid-band spectrum auctions.
So far, many commercial 5G launches which have taken place across the region have been deployed sparsely on mid-band spectrum and to a larger extent on low-band spectrum. While low-band spectrum can offer some, albeit incremental, experiential gains for 5G, the deployment of mid-band 5G can greatly increase the peak speeds and unlock the full 5G experience.
Here, for the first time, we will finally begin to see some real differentiation across the region’s 5G markets, one which will be shaped around user experience. And to deliver a superior 5G user experience, it all comes down to what is under the hood of each 5G deployment: the equipment, of course; the spectrum assets; and also, critically, software features such as 5G carrier aggregation.
For service providers who are moving up to the 3.5GHz mid-band spectrum, both of these bolt-on software features are designed to deliver an enhanced 5G user experience above and beyond standard 5G deployments. By aggregating existing wide-coverage low bands with high-throughput mid bands, carrier aggregation helps to extend the unique characteristics of the various network bands to enable, for example, wider coverage and increased capacity. In the case of the 3.5GHz mid-band spectrum, carrier aggregation can enable up to 50 percent larger population coverage compared to a standard time division duplex (TDD) band deployment on a standalone network, as we recently confirmed in our trial together with Telia in Norway.
The fastest and most cost-efficient way to capture 5G revenue
Service providers in Europe and Latin America should look at 5G market trends in early mover markets such as Asia Pacific to see how user experience can quickly define a new market. Here, delivery of high-capacity 5G applications such as ultra-high resolution 4K video streaming and 5G gaming quickly became a key market differentiator, allowing both market challengers and leaders to take a big chunk based on user experience and diversity of digital service offering. Applications such as these are part of an emerging technology space which is forecast to unlock USD 31 trillion in 5G consumer revenue potential worldwide by 2030. It will also be critical support tool in enabling industrial use cases on both 5G non-standalone and 5G standalone networks when they emerge.
To capture part of that lucrative market, service providers in Europe and Latin America are expected to gradually ramp up the deployment of new 5G mid-band services via software upgrades across Ericsson Radio System base station sites this year. While this is a natural first step, it’s also important to consider that existing network infrastructures have evolved based on the wide-area coverage characteristics of low-band spectrum. From first generation networks to LTE, service providers have strategically deployed base stations to ensure the most cost-efficient deployment of wide-area coverage low band. And while mid-band deployments provide higher throughput and faster speeds, they do not deliver the same geographical coverage as low-band deployments. This is where carrier aggregation comes into play.
How carrier aggregation works
So how does it work? To understand that, it’s important to first understand the characteristics of the different spectrum bands.
- Low band accounts for deployments in frequencies below 6GHz on frequency division duplex (FDD) bands and offers the widest possible coverage, with the lowest throughput of all frequency bands. These bands have been used ever since the first mobile generation and defines the coverage layer of most service providers.
- Mid band accounts for deployments in the 1-6GHz range and comes in two dominant flavors – FDD mid band (1.8 – 2.6 GHZ) which has been the capacity layer for legacy networks, and TDD mid band (below 6GHz) can offer game-changing throughput and capacity, albeit not as wide coverage as low-band deployments.
- High band accounts for deployments above the 24GHz frequency range (26GHz is Europe’s pioneer band), which we also call millimeter-wave (mmWave). This spectrum enables extremely high speeds over short distances and will be key to unlocking ultra-low latency indoor use cases in future.
Step forward carrier aggregation. As a technology, inter-band carrier aggregation has existed since early LTE and is already used by service providers today to aggregate four or five different low-band carriers. Here, where coverage is already broad, the value has always been to leverage on the peak throughput of LTE bands. With 5G carrier aggregation, the value will shift considerably to leveraging the coverage characteristics of low-band LTE spectrum to extend the reach of high-capacity applications on 5G mid band.
This is performed by aggregating multiple bands and to direct traffic of the weaker mid-band uplink through existing FDD low-band frequencies. In a nutshell, this means that service providers can extend the geographical coverage of mid-band 5G downlink and reach subscribers living further away from the base station and, when on the move, enjoy the high speed 5G experience in larger areas.
Next steps for service providers
With the commercial arrival of the first smartphones to support 5G mid-band carrier aggregation late last year, and more to come early this year, there is no time to waste in deploying 5G carrier aggregation.
Ericsson has a market-leading 5G software portfolio which is demonstrated through our award-winning Ericsson Spectrum Sharing, and 5G carrier aggregation software – the first solution of its kind on the market today. In recognition of Ericsson’s commercial 5G leadership, Ericsson was also recently named a leader in the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for 5G Network Infrastructure report.
Today, we continue to collaborate with the ecosystem to demonstrate the real impact of carrier aggregation on both coverage and capacity across all spectrum bands. Most recently, we teamed up with Telia Norway to launch the first carrier aggregation trial in the Nordics. Through trials such as this, we are setting the blueprint for service providers in the region to achieve early 5G market success.
Read more
Visit the Ericsson carrier aggregation page
Find out about our 5G carrier aggregation trials with key partners in the ecosystem
Read more about Ericsson Spectrum Sharing and Ericsson Uplink Booster
