MONTREAL – Bell said Friday that it has become the first wireless provider in Canada to achieve Gigabit LTE speeds, hitting the milestone during recent deployment testing conducted in Mississauga.
To boost LTE-A speeds to the Gigabit level, Bell uses a combination of carrier aggregation and 4X4 MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) technology to increase spectrum efficiency and multiply capacity. Bell added that it will also support Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) technology to aggregate unlicensed 5 GHz spectrum with LTE in licensed bands to provide higher transfer speeds.
The company pledged to roll out its enhanced network to locations “throughout the country” this year as smartphones that support these advanced speeds come to market.
"Canada's Best National Network keeps getting better as Bell's commitment to broadband investment and innovation drives LTE speeds and coverage to unprecedented levels," said Bell CTO Stephen Howe, in the news release. "With theoretical speeds as high as 1.5 Gbps, Bell's enhanced LTE-A network will be ready as our smartphone partners launch their new generation of Gigabit-capable devices."
