Understanding LTE-Unlicensed // July 2015
Editor's Note
LTE-U Attracts
Controversy and
Industry support
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Unlicensed
T-Mobile and LTE-U: An
Early Entrant Goes All-In
FierceWireless
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T-Mobile and LTE-U: An Early Entrant Goes All-In
T-Mobile plans to be one of the first carriers in the world to leverage LTE-U sometime
next year. The technology could give T-Mobile a chance to gain ground on its bigger
competitors, but the move isn't without risk.
By Colin Gibbs
T-Mobile is positioned to be one of the first mobile
carriers in the world to leverage LTE-U when it
launches service using unlicensed spectrum next
year. The company has confirmed that it expects to
begin trials of LTE-U in the second half of this year,
and then deploy LTE commercially in the unlicensed
5 GHz band in 2016. The rollout will initially focus
on in-building solutions for enterprises and perhaps
consumers before expanding to outdoor uses.
While AT&T and some other mobile network
operators have taken a more measured approach to
LTE-U, T-Mobile clearly believes the technology can
help it add capacity and boost network speeds with
relatively little investment. The carrier will integrate
unlicensed airwaves with its existing LTE spectrum via
carrier aggregation, providing an initial connection to
the network through licensed spectrum and then using
LTE-U to increase network capacity on the downlink.
In the short term, at least, aggressively rolling out
LTE-U could help T-Mobile quickly expand its LTE
footprint, which is relatively small compared to rivals
AT&T and Verizon.
"The deployment of LTE in unlicensed spectrum
is intended to complement licensed spectrum
deployments," Zacks Equity Research wrote on its
company blog earlier this year in a report on T-Mobile's
plans. "Thus, by using carrier aggregation between
LTE in licensed and unlicensed spectrum, operators
can considerably augment connectivity and deliver data
speeds at rates more than two times quicker than LTE."
The LAA flavor of LTE-U
T-Mobile's trials will use LTE-U enabled small cells
from Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson that have been
equipped with small cell system-on-chip (SoC)
solutions from Qualcomm Technologies. The service
will leverage Licensed Assisted Access, a version of
unlicensed LTE that will be addressed in Release 13
