While 5G firsts have been all the hype recently, Verizon hasn’t forgotten about its 4G LTE network as it combined licensed and shared spectrum this week to hit new record data speeds.
The carrier announced Thursday that it used LTE Advanced technologies, including six channel carrier aggregation, to hit peak data speeds of 1.45 Gbps on 4G LTE in a commercial environment for the first time in the U.S., alongside partners Nokia and Qualcomm.
The demo was performed on Verizon’s network in New York and used the carrier’s licensed PCS and AWS spectrum, along with four carriers of shared License Assisted Access (LAA) spectrum. It used Nokia’s AirScale base station and a mobile test device from Qualcomm, powered by the Snapdragon X24 LTE modem.
Verizon also utilized 256 QAM for uploads to deliver more bits of data in each transmission and 4×4 MIMO, which uses multiple antennas to decrease errors and optimize data speeds.
“When we first launched our LTE network, we knew there would be a lot of room for innovation and to expand its capabilities. Eight years later, we continue our advancement of our 4G LTE network knowing our LTE network leadership is foundational for our evolution into 5G,” says Bill Stone, Vice President of Technology Planning and Development for Verizon, in a statement.
In July, Verizon announced these three advanced technologies were live in more than 1,100 markets across the country.
Verizon is gearing up for its 5G in-home broadband launch, with service going live in four cities next Monday (Oct. 1). Customers in Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles and Sacramento can get the carrier’s 5G Home service for $50 per month if they are a Verizon wireless customer, otherwise it costs $70 per month (first three months are free).
Customers can expect typical network speeds of about 300 Mbps, and peak speeds of nearly 1 Gbps, with no data caps.
