Ericsson, which is always keen to mark any signs of momentum for its flagship Radio Dot System, announced this week that China Telecom has deployed the indoor LTE system at two locations in Zhejiang and Guangdong.
In Guangdong the operator was also reported to have turned on 2 x 20MHz carrier aggregation of bands at 18.GHz and 2.1GHz – giving a max speed of 300Mbps. This is the first “mainland” deployment for Radio Dot in China.
Although Ericsson didn’t make it explicit in its public release, Ericsson has confirmed to The Mobile Network that the Guangdong venue (with the carrier aggregration) that has been covered is one of China Telecom’s own facilities, while the other deployment is in a third party building.
It is not unusual for operators or vendors to deploy new network technology in their own facilities as a pilot project – for example Vodafone supported a deployment of Huawei’s Lampsite at Huawei’s UK headquarters in 2014.
Ericsson will be hoping China Telecom likes what it sees in the Dot, as the next stage of the operator’s LTE investment is to boost indoor coverage and capacity.
