LAA Trial: Telenor, Ericsson achieve peak speed of 1Gbps in Myanmar

Telenor and Ericsson in a joint network speed trial achieved a record high peak speed of 1Gbps, the fastest internet speed ever achieved in Myanmar.

The speed trial utilized technologies including Licensed Assisted Access (LAA), a LTE feature to deliver a performance boost for mobile device users.

“Today’s Gigabit 4GLTE trial result is a remarkable breakthrough for Myanmar and the country’s telecom industry. Telenor has already established the fastest and most consistent mobile data network in Myanmar, and with this speed trial we have showcased that our network is capable for increased future demands. Today’s successful trial reached 5G speed levels, and for Telenor this is another major step in our network improvement in Myanmar,” said Lars Erik Tellmann, Chief Executive Officer of Telenor Myanmar.

The trial delivered 1 Gbps speed by using several key LTE technologies including 256 QAM, 4x4 MIMO and Carrier Aggregation combining licensed and unlicensed spectrum bands based on a commercial handset.

Studies shows that future data growth will happen on the smartphone, and as familiarity with data intensive applications rises among Myanmar people data usage is expected to continue growing rapidly. Monthly average usage for Telenor’s 4G customers has already reached 5.6GB. The successful capacity trial on our 4GLTE network gives me confidence that Telenor will continue its lead in network innovation to offer our customers the best experience with even faster speeds and better capacity, Tellmann added.

Eric Timmer, Ericsson Myanmar Country Manager, said “Global mobile data traffic is expected to increase eight times by 2022, with video being increasingly dominant. Myanmar is part of this trend and Ericsson’s Gigabit LTE portfolio including Licensed Assisted Access will enable Telenor to offer an unparalleled capacity and experience boost to its customers in Myanmar”.

This latest breakthrough extends the partnership of Telenor and Ericsson in Gigabit LTE and in boosting the 5G readiness of Myanmar.

In April, Telenor Myanmar was named the 2017 Award Winner for Myanmar’s fastest mobile network by Ookla, the global leader in internet testing. Based on data from Q3–Q4 2017, Telenor provided faster average speeds to their users than the other major providers in Myanmar.