Telia Network Reaches 1 Gbps Data Transfer Speed

Telia Estonia and Ericsson reached download speed of 1 Gbps during 4G network field testing.

Customers’ expectations for both broadband and mobile data networks are constantly increasing, and data traffic in Telia’s mobile network grows twofold each year.

“Our customers expect ever faster and more reliable service throughout the whole country. Thus, all service providers must keep up with technological innovation. We want to stay in the forefront of the technical development in Estonia, and this is why we are testing our network’s ability to handle ten times bigger data traffic than today,“ said Kirke Saar, CTO at Telia Estonia.

During the last week’s testing Telia reached mobile data speed of 1 gigabit per second in its live 4G network. This is the fastest speed ever measured in Estonia, and it matches the European record from April 2016.

Seth Lackman, Country Manager at Ericsson Estonia says: “Gigabit 4G is an important milestone in our joint journey towards 5G. When commercially available, the evolved mobile technology will enable Telia mobile users in Estonia to enjoy extremely fast time to content. Mobile communications – and particularly mobile broadband – are at the heart of today’s Networked Society. This test once again confirmed the forefront position of Estonia in the digital development.”

4G network supporting downlink peak data rate of 1Gbps fulfills the advanced end-user requirements while dealing with high-growth data traffic. According to Ericsson Mobility Report, there will be globally a 12-fold growth in smartphone traffic until 2021, fueled primarily by more viewing of video content.

According to Ermo Polma, Manager of Radio Network at Telia Estonia, this speed requires several technologies to work together. Three frequency blocks are used - 1x1800 MHz and 2x2600 MHz – and each block has 20 MHz channels. Each frequency uses four parallel channels (4x4 MIMO), while the regular 4G LTE network uses 2x2 MIMO. Additionally, to reach the 1 Gpbs speed, more complex modulation method is used (256QAM).

“This enables reaching download speed of up to 1.2 Gbps. With this, we have shown the capability of Ericsson’s radio and core network to provide these speeds commercially,“ Polma added.

All Ericsson hardware and software elements used in the test are commercially available. At the same time, currently there are no end user devices that support the 1 Gbps speed.