Samsung Unveils a series of EvoluTions in Carrier Aggregation at Mobile World Congress 2014

Evolutions in Carrier Aggregation include overwhelming data speeds,

innovative technologies and diverse use cases of the technology

Samsung Electronics will showcase its latest developments in Carrier Aggregation (CA), a feature of LTE-Advanced, at Mobile World Congress 2014. The networks which are powered by Samsung’s advanced CA technologies will verify significant mobile data speed enhancements, improved cell edge performance, large coverage with powerful data off-loading capability and a better way of handling Heterogeneous Network (HetNet).

At the first stage, Samsung is going to demonstrate ‘3Band CA’, which aggregates triple carriers with 20MHz bandwidth each. The demonstration will show total data throughput of ‘3Band CA’ peaking up to 450Mbps, 3 times faster data speed than using one carrier with 20MHz bandwidth. By cooperating with leading Korean operators, Samsung will also demonstrate commercially readied network supporting maximum 300Mbps data speed by aggregating of the two carriers with 20MHz bandwidth respectively. Samsung believes the technologies will provide better mobile user experience with unprecedented mobile data speeds.

Samsung also plans to show a demonstration on ‘Smart CA’, company’s a differentiated solution for Carrier Aggregation. With its early commercial experience of CA in Korean market, Samsung has witnessed considerable coverage mismatches between the primary and the secondary frequencies, and it hinders UE enjoying full benefits of CA.

To deal with this problem, Samsung’s Smart CA provides stepwise technologies, which enables network performance improvements in cell edge areas and enhances user fairness in the network. The technologies are called ‘Primary Cell Switching’ and ‘Best Cell Aggregation’. When the primary cell is in weak signal condition, Primary Cell Switching technology automatically switches the frequency that UE is connecting, to another frequency which is in better status.

Best Cell Aggregation is a notch above technology compared to Primary Cell Switching. The technology supports UE with best optimal network by aggregating bands with best conditions among several overlapping cells, therefore, it provides significant increase in total data throughput of user devices.

In addition, Samsung will also suggest innovative use case of CA which enables network to take benefits of both large coverage and powerful data off-loading. By using high frequency bands for data off-loading and low band frequencies for maintaining fundamental connection between UE and network, mobile operators can utilize their network in the most effective and efficient way.

Furthermore, Samsung will show CA between macro cell and small cell. In this showcase, Samsung shows coverage of network maintained by a macro cell while data offloading is addressed by small cells. Building on this, Samsung supports seamless connections for UE without handovers in the macro cell site.

“Carrier Aggregation is one of the most essential and popular solution in today’s mobile network, as the technology could maximize the benefits from LTE using various frequency bands.” said Sam Baker, Vice President & Head of Marketing Group at Networks Business, Samsung Electronics. “Samsung has been at the top position for developing this technology. As a result, we achieved the world’s first commercialization of Carrier Aggregation with market leading Korean operators in June 2013, and we are also co-working with global mobile operators for further development of this technology. We believe these early experience and expertise on Carrier Aggregation will help mobile operators to launch the most efficient and powerful LTE network.”