Gigabit LTE: Global Status Update May 2019

Gigabit LTE – Global Status May Update

INVESTMENT IN GIGABIT LTE NETWORK TECHNOLOGIES WORLDWIDE

• At the end of February 2019, GSA has identified 101 operators in 60 countries or territories investing in all the three core LTE-Advanced features for Gigabit LTE (defined as Carrier Aggregation, 4×4 MIMO or higher, and 256 QAM modulation in the downlink)
• 53 operators have deployed all three of these technologies and / or launched commercial services based on them
• 313 operators in 133countries are investing in at least one of the key technologies

DISTRIBUTION OF GIGABIT LTE NETWORKS AND DOWNLINK SPEEDS OF THE FASTEST NETWORKS

Gigabit LTE does not always equal Gigabit speed. Some networks capable of delivering 1 Gbps downstream do so without using all three key LTE-Advanced features; some networks using all three features do not achieve 1 Gbps

The fastest networks in the GSA database are:

• KDDI, SK Telecom, Swisscom, Telus, Turkcell:  1.2 Gbps
• KT: 1.167 Gbps(achieved using MPTCP to combine LTE with 3CA and WiFi)
• China Unicom:  1.156 Gbps
• Bell Mobility:  1.15 Gbps
• 3 Hong Kong, Singtel:  1.1 Gbps
• Optus: 1.03 Gbps
• Vodafone Italy:  1.023 Gbps
• AT&T Mobility, China Mobile Hong Kong, CYTA, Dialog Axiata, DNA, Elisa, HKT, Inwi(Wana), O2 Czech Republic, Ooredoo Qatar, Smartone, Sprint, StarHub, Telenor Denmark, TeliaSonera Denmark, Telstra, Vodafone Germany, Vodafone Ziggo: 1 Gbps

This data is taken from Gigabit LTE Networks: Analysis of Deployments Worldwide (May 2019) published by GSA and available from www.gsacom.com. GSA reports are compiled from data stored in the GSA Analyser for Mobile Broadband Devices/Data (GAMBoD) database.

©2019 GSA