At MWC, Spanish telecommunications company Telefonica deployed its first public test of an LTE network which the company believes will provide download speeds of 100Mbps and upload speeds of 40 to 60Mbps. This network is based on Alcatel-Lucent's LightRadio cells (pictured below) and is supposed to not only improve speed and capacity, but is also more cost-efficient to deploy than the standard LTE.
The network relies on small 4G base stations that can be installed in both sparse and densely populated areas. Telefonica claims that each cell can support 30 people with an average browsing speed of 30Mbps. Despite being small-celled base stations, the cells operate on the same 2.6GHz frequency as traditional, larger base stations but still function similarly to the small-cell LTE which is currently being tested by Virgin Media. All similarities aside, this is the first network of its kind on the 2.6GHz spectrum so the speed should be rapid.
There is no date confirmed for implementation outside of MWC, but the moment it is available, we’ll keep you posted.
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