T-Mobile announces another milestone in its 5G achievements. This time the company has combined three channels of mid-band spectrum on its 5G network, to achieve a 3Gbps network speed. T-Mobile says this technology will become available to customers on its network “later this year.”
According to Neville Ray, President of Technology at T-Mobile, “Only T-Mobile is delivering a nationwide standalone 5G network to customers today, and we’re blazing a trail with new performance-boosting capabilities that generate incredible speeds and deliver on our vision to create the highest capacity network in the country.” Ray added that “This test demonstrates the incredible power of mid-band spectrum and represents another huge step forward for standalone 5G.” T‑Mobile was able to pull off this feat with help from Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.
In simple terms, T-Mobile is using Carrier Aggregation to combine different swaths of the spectrum. The company explains that using the 5G Carrier Aggregation will allow it to combine multiple 5G channels (or carriers) to deliver a greater speed and performance. In this test, the Un-carrier merged three 5G channels – two channels of 2.5 GHz Ultra Capacity 5G and one channel of 1900 MHz spectrum – creating an effective 210 MHz 5G channel. That’s all mid-band spectrum, by the way. And over 3 Gbps of speed!
The 3Gbps (or 3,000Mbps) speeds approach mmWave territory — that’s the high-band, limited range kind of 5G that gives users the ability to download a movie in seconds. Mid-band 5G typically reaches around 200Mbps, a very good range compared to that of LTE.
Although using a Carrier Aggregation to deliver impressive network speeds is nothing new. The technology has previously been demonstrated in 2020 by Verizonto deliver speeds of 4.2Gbps on its 5G network. But T-Mobile claims to be the first to use three-carrier aggregation on a live, standalone 5G network with a commercially available device: the Samsung Galaxy S22 (powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Mobile Platform with Snapdragon X65 Modem-RF System). For now, T-Mobile subscribers using the Galaxy S22 will be “among the first” to be able to testify of the unique flavour of 5G when it eventually arrives later this year.
T-Mobile has proven to be a leader in 5G with the largest and fastest 5G network. By removing the need for an underlying 4G LTE network and 4G core, 5G will be able to reach its true future potential with incredibly fast speeds, real-time responsiveness and massive connectivity. This achievement is only possible with standalone 5G architecture (SA) and is just the latest in a series of important SA 5G milestones for T-Mobile.
Olagoke Ajibola is a creative writer and content producer with an eye for details and excellence. He has a demonstrated history of telling stories for TV, Film and Online. Aside from being fascinated by the power of imagination, his other interest are travel, sport, reading and meeting people.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
