Progress to Gigabit LTE Networks – May Update

Drawing on information collected by GSA about operator deployments of LTE-Advanced features for its comprehensive database on operator Networks, Technologies and Spectrum (NTS), this report identifies operators investing at a technology level in Gigabit LTE (defined as carrier aggregation plus 4×4 MIMO plus 256QAM DL).

• 295 operators in 125 countries are investing in at least one of the three key Gigabit LTE component technologies.
• 87 operators in 52 countries are investing in all three key Gigabit LTE component technologies.
• 41 operators in 30 countries have deployed all three technologies.
• 16 have announced Gigabit (or very near at 979 Mbps) speeds in their deployed/commercial networks (12 of them using all three component technologies).
• Four operators have pockets of network capable of delivering the maximum DL speeds supported by Cat-18 devices (i.e. peak theoretical throughput of up to 1.2 Gbps).

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