Spark ready for 4.5G mobile networks

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freitasm

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# 210205 17-Mar-2017 19:23

Received today:

Spark has welcomed news today from Communications Minister Simon Bridges that the target of ninety per cent of New Zealanders having access to 4G has been reached ahead of schedule, and the company is already taking the first steps towards the next evolution of mobile technology – 4.5G.

The Spark 4G network, which currently covers over 93% of the places New Zealanders work, live, and play, gives people better and faster access to mobile services, helping them to stay connected with family, friends, and colleagues. It also gives them more options for internet connections with Spark Wireless Broadband.

Spark General Manager of Networks, Colin Brown, says the company is committed to delivering high-quality mobile services to as many New Zealanders as possible, and while the 4G rollout is continuing, the company is also turning its attention to the next generation of mobile services.

“We are proud to do our bit to get more 4G to more people. In particular, our 700MHz deployments are bringing more connectivity to people in rural areas, and our 2300MHz spectrum has already been deployed to 44 sites to give people all over New Zealand more capacity for mobile data and more options for wireless broadband.

“But we’re always looking forward too. We are the first and only provider in New Zealand to give people a taste of the future with 4.5G, which provides more capacity and faster mobile speeds, with speeds of over 1Gbps possible as devices catch up to the network in the future. This technology is now operating on two sites – one in central Christchurch and the other in Silverdale – and we’ll be rolling it out to more New Zealanders soon,” said Brown.

Note: 4.5G is an evolution on 4G. Spark is delivering it over a wide range of its spectrum assets, including the recently acquired 2300MHz spectrum by utilising “Carrier Aggregation” technology (using multiple bands of spectrum simultaneously to increase speeds and capacity), 4x4 MIMO (utilising multiple antennae simultaneously to multiply available capacity), and 256 QAM (or Quadrature Amplitude Modulation, which improves the efficiency of radio transmissions and allows for more speed).

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old3eyes

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# 1743674 19-Mar-2017 08:33

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Hmm. 4.5G sounds a bit like marketing speak to me..

Regards,

Old3eyes

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# 1743686 19-Mar-2017 08:58

What handsets in market can support CA over all those bands? I suspect none at the moment but we should see them next year so article is correct Spark is ready but the handsets are not,

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Jase2985

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# 1743830 19-Mar-2017 14:50

pretty sure the mate 9 does, though i did struggle to find all the bands spark uses

LTE-Advanced Cat.12 network chip that supports 4-carrier aggregation, the Mate 9 is able to achieve download speed of up to 600Mbps

LTE band 1(2100), 2(1900), 3(1800), 4(1700/2100), 5(850), 7(2600), 8(900), 9(1800), 12(700), 17(700), 18(800), 19(800), 20(800), 26(850), 28(700), 29(700), 38(2600), 39(1900), 40(2300), 41(2500)

PhantomNVD

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# 1743835 19-Mar-2017 15:10

Linux:
What handsets in market can support CA over all those bands? I suspect none at the moment but we should see them next year so article is correct Spark is ready but the handsets are not,

Linux

iPhones from the 6s upward and MANY more:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_devices_with_LTE_Advanced

PhantomNVD

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# 1743839 19-Mar-2017 15:14

And from Spark's MD Moutter on the Herald website:

The new technology has been deployed on a combination of 2300MHz spectrum - only acquired by Spark a few weeks ago - and the existing 2600MHz and 700MHz range.

There are no phones or modems in New Zealand that currently support the full range of 4.5G features.

However, a number of devices including the Huawei P9, Samsung Galaxy S7 and iPhone 6s support some of the features that make up 4.5G, so customers with these devices will be able to access download speeds at least twice as fast, when they are connected to the Hereford Street mobile site.

Jase2985

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# 1743840 19-Mar-2017 15:14

PhantomNVD:
Linux:

What handsets in market can support CA over all those bands? I suspect none at the moment but we should see them next year so article is correct Spark is ready but the handsets are not,

Linux

iPhones from the 6s upward and MANY more:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_devices_with_LTE_Advanced

think he was more meaning sparks bands

surfisup1000

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# 1743841 19-Mar-2017 15:14

Not much point as data caps are the limiting factor, not speed.

PhantomNVD

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# 1743842 19-Mar-2017 15:14

Cross posted :)

PhantomNVD

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# 1743844 19-Mar-2017 15:18

surfisup1000:
Not much point as data caps are the limiting factor, not speed.

But as Capping is one of the main ways they use to limit bandwidth overloading, active CA should then allow both greater speed AND bigger Caps as they are then able to effectively use ALL their bandwidth to a paid it being 'overloaded' on one band and underused on others?

michaelmurfy

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# 1743846 19-Mar-2017 15:20

surfisup1000:

Not much point as data caps are the limiting factor, not speed.

Bare in mind that is what we said when 4G was being announced and now try going back to 3G (it is terrible).

Linux

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# 1743854 19-Mar-2017 15:39

PhantomNVD:
Linux:

What handsets in market can support CA over all those bands? I suspect none at the moment but we should see them next year so article is correct Spark is ready but the handsets are not,

Linux

iPhones from the 6s upward and MANY more:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_devices_with_LTE_Advanced

@PhantomNVD Not 4CA maybe 3CA which is nothing new in New Zealand VodafoneNZ has had 3CA live on a loads of sites for well over 12 months

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gehenna

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# 1743892 19-Mar-2017 16:42

old3eyes:

Hmm. 4.5G sounds a bit like marketing speak to me..

Just like 4G was, and is.

richms

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# 1743992 19-Mar-2017 18:34

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I frequently see 1-2 bars of 3g on my phone and will just not even bother to try to load things, 4g is so much better.

Good to see that they are at that figure, but I think its still BS that you can be in the middle of a large city and only have 3G service - so how can that be in the 90s for a %age?

Richard rich.ms

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# 1744023 19-Mar-2017 19:31

I have a Galaxy S7 on Skinny network and have seen 4G+ pop up several times now, can't remember where I was, but assume now I must have been seeing some band 40 2300MHz LTE I could carrier aggregate with the band 28 700Mhz LTE.

hio77

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# 1744026 19-Mar-2017 19:43

Find sparks 4G coverage is a lot less distance controlled like Vodafones.

VF can often be faster simply because they already have a fair bit of CA in-place, but lately seeing more and more Spark sites hitting it - I run a dual sim phone so always noticing the differences in the two networks at once.

certainly excited to see what else spark pulls out of their pocket on this field.

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