du has also deployed extreme-large antenna arrays (ELAA) technology, which has resulted in approximately a 30% enhancement in user experience

United Arab Emirates (UAE) telco du announced the deployment of a large-scale three carrier aggregation (CA) in TDD Massive MIMO base station, delivering a peak data rate of over 5 Gbps as part of its efforts towards the implementation of 5G-Advanced technology in the UAE.

The Arab telco had previously completed 5G two-carrier aggregation in TDD Massive MIMO across its entire network in 2022, providing its subscribers with a peak data rate of 3.6 Gbps. This resulted in du’s 5G network witnessing traffic exceeding 60% of the overall mobile traffic by October 2023, carrying more traffic than the combined 4G and 3G traffic.

Additionally, du has also deployed extremely-large antenna arrays (ELAA) technology, which it says has resulted in approximately a 30% enhancement in user experience and an approximate 30% reduction in power consumption.

“Through the implementation of TDD large-bandwidth three carrier aggregation, we are taking a stride towards ensuring an unparalleled 5G user experience, marking the initial phase of our journey towards 5G-Advanced commercial deployment,” du said.

In December 2023, Finnish vendor Nokia and du announced the conclusion of what it claimed to be UAE’s first 5G-Advanced 5G Reduced Capability (RedCap) trial over a commercial network.

The partners said that this recent trial showcased the readiness of du’s 5G network for innovative use cases in areas such as the Internet of Things (IoT), wearables and Industry 4.0 to address 5G monetization challenges.

RedCap, sometimes referred to as NR Light, is a reduced set of 5G capabilities intended for devices like wearables and low-cost hotspots that have low battery consumption, lower costs and lower bandwidth requirements. Introduced with 3GPP Release 17, 5G RedCap is designed for devices currently served by LTE CAT-4 but provides equivalent or better in performance with up to 150 Mbps theoretical maximum downlink throughput. This technology helps reduce the complexity, cost and size of 5G devices.

Nokia and du trialed MediaTek’s T300 series RedCap test equipment in the carrier’s 5G Standalone (SA) radio access network (RAN) built with Nokia’s AirScale radio products, leveraging existing mid-band spectrum.

The two companies also noted that following this trial, they would extend RedCap over low-band frequencies with the aim of ensuring a high level of coverage and connectivity.