Sprint prepares for three-channel carrier aggregation in LTE Plus markets across the country

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (BUSINESS WIRE), March 15, 2016 - Sprint (NYSE: S) today demonstrated speeds of more than 300 Mbps using the Samsung Galaxy S7, one of the first devices on the market with hardware able to support three-channel carrier aggregation capable of delivering real-world peak speeds of more than 200 Mbps.

Today Sprint uses two-channel carrier aggregation to deliver peak speeds of more than 100 Mbps in more than 150 LTE Plus markets across the country. With the availability of the Samsung Galaxy S7, Sprint and Samsung have begun testing three-channel carrier aggregation to prepare for Sprint’s future deployment in Sprint’s super-fast LTE Plus Network.

Three-channel carrier aggregation is a feature of LTE-Advanced that bonds together bands of spectrum to create wider channels and produce more capacity and faster speeds on capable devices. Essentially it creates a wider lane that allows more traffic to travel at higher rates. Today with two-channel carrier aggregation Sprint uses 40MHz of spectrum on select 2.5GHz cell sites. With three-channel carrier aggregation Sprint will utilize 60MHz of spectrum.

“Our high-band 2.5GHz spectrum excels at moving high volumes of data at very fast speeds. And while 60MHz of spectrum can deliver the kind of phenomenal speeds shown today, we’re just getting started,” said Dr. John Saw, Sprint CTO. “With holdings of more than 160MHz of 2.5GHz spectrum in the top 100 U.S. markets, we have more capacity than any other carrier in the U.S. This is a tremendous advantage, allowing us to keep adding the capacity and speed needed to serve our customers’ demand for data now and well into the future. Two-channel carrier aggregation has already had a significant impact on our network performance and we’re excited to take it to the next level with Samsung.”

Today Sprint is device testing three-channel carrier aggregation in its lab located in Reston, Virginia, to evaluate overall performance, speed and reliability using the Samsung Galaxy S7. The company expects to test new devices as they become available in preparation for deployment of three-channel carrier aggregation within the super-fast LTE Plus Network.