First End-to-End CBRS Carrier Aggregation Demo Announced

Verizon, Ericsson, Qualcomm Technologies and Federated Wireless announced they demonstrated LTE Advanced carrier aggregation using the U.S. Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum. The companies claim this lab demo was the first use of CBRS spectrum (band 48).

The CBRS band comprises 150 MHz of 3.5 GHz spectrum which, until designated for CBRS, was used primarily by the U.S. government for radar systems. The FCC authorized shared use of the band for radar and wireless small cells.

Using LTE carrier aggregation, Verizon, Ericsson, Qualcomm Technologies and Federated Wireless used the band to carry wireless traffic. Conducted in an Ericsson lab in Plano, Texas, the trial demonstrated end-to-end CBRS communication using 2 x 20 MHz LTE carriers on band 48, employing 256-QAM on the downlink.

Ericsson provided their Radio Dot small cell and domain proxy, and Federated Wireless provided the spectrum access controller, which dynamically prioritized traffic within the FCC’s spectrum sharing rules for band 48. Qualcomm Technologies provided a Snapdragon^TM LTE modem test device.

The demonstration will be repeated at Mobile World Congress Americas in California in mid September.

Nicola Palmer, the chief network officer for Verizon Wireless, said “The use of CBRS spectrum greatly advances our work in emerging spectrum bands. Verizon and our partners are leading the way in creating an ecosystem around the use of CBRS spectrum which will lead to greater capacity and speed for our customers.”

Nishant Batra, the vice president and head of Ericsson’s network infrastructure, said, “We plan to introduce a full portfolio of Ericsson radio system for CBRS band across macro, micro and in-building segments, starting with the Radio Dot, to serve our customers’ needs holistically.”

Photo credit: Pixabay.com