T-Mobile's LAA Creates Screaming Fast Speeds in NYC

T-Mobile is now boosting LTE download speeds to over 500Mbps past using Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) in New York City, according to Milan Milanovic, Technical Evangelist for Ookla.

This is the beginning time we've really been able to see and exam commercial LAA in the United states of america. The applied science, which we've heard a lot about for a year at present, pipes 4G LTE signals over unused 5GHz Wi-Fi channels to widen a carrier'southward bachelor bandwidth. For carriers other than Sprint, LAA will be critical to achieving gigabit LTE speeds, because they don't take enough contiguous licensed spectrum to attain those speeds.

Wireless carriers detest referring to these channels as Wi-Fi spectrum, considering information technology implies that Wi-Fi has preferred usage of the 5GHz band when it's actually open to everyone. Merely Wi-Fi is the predominant use for it correct at present.

AT&T is working with LAA in Indianapolis and Austin, and Verizon is probably "deploying but being stealthy," Milanovic said.

At a cell site at 45th St. and Third Avenue in Manhattan, T-Mobile is combining 20MHz of its Band 4 spectrum with 60MHz of LAA spectrum. Phones connect to the cell site and send information up using the 1700MHz/2100Mhz Ring iv spectrum, and and then get downloaded data via a combination of Band four and LAA.

T-Mobile LAA Test Results

Those speeds are insane. In 13 tests, we got an average of 503Mbps downwards and 42.7Mbps up. Just to compare, in Ookla's Speedtest Intelligence database, the top x percent of T-Mobile download speeds in that Aught code are only effectually 70Mbps down.

LAA-capable phones can get upwardly to ten 100Mbps download streams on this cell site, with four on the licensed spectrum (4x4 MIMO) and ii on each of three channels of LAA spectrum, Milanovic said.

Other users on this cell site will do well, only not as well as LAA users, Milanovic notes. The site is also equipped with T-Mobile'due south workhorse Band 2 and the low-frequency Ring 12, which penetrates within buildings.

LAA is only a solution for dumbo urban areas, though. This cell site has a coverage diameter of about iv blocks (a flake over 1,000 feet), which is considered pretty expert for LAA. That'southward a little ameliorate than what the coverage probably would be if the site was sending downward 5GHz Wi-Fi, and information technology's a piffling better than New York's LinkNYC public Wi-Fi posts.

A nearby LinkNYC postal service doesn't appear to exist interfering with the T-Mobile point, Milanovic said. That'due south good news, because one of the concerns nigh LAA is whether or not it will coexist well with powerful public Wi-Fi.

You'll need the correct telephone to hit these speeds, and that's not an iPhone. Currently, LAA is supported by T-Mobile's Samsung Milky way S8, Note 8, Galaxy S8 Active, Galaxy S9/S9+, LG V30, and the unlocked Huawei Mate 10 Pro. Nosotros'll brand sure to test LAA when nosotros go on the route with our Fastest Mobile Networks drive tests this spring.

Disclosure: Ookla and PCMag share a parent visitor, Ziff Davis.