Aeroflex TM500 Multi-UE LTE-A test mobile platform

Aeroflex has announced the launch of the TM500 Multi-UE LTE-A Test Mobile platform, which supports carrier aggregation across multiple mobile terminals or user equipment (UE). Carrier aggregation, a key component of LTE-A, enables multiple carriers comprised of either contiguous or non-contiguous spectrum to be added together, enabling wider channel bandwidths - and higher data rates - to be achieved.

Carrier aggregation has been available for the Single-UE TM500 for over a year. Once cellular infrastructure vendors have verified carrier aggregation capability with a single mobile terminal, they can use the TM500 LTE-A Test Mobile to emulate real network traffic with multiple terminals at an early stage, ahead of the widespread availability of real LTE-A terminals and handsets.

Aeroflex says the TM500 Test Mobile platform is a de facto industry standard for testing LTE and LTE-A base stations or eNodeBs. The company says it is continuing to work with mobile operators and leading network infrastructure vendors to enable them to develop and begin to roll out the high bandwidth services promised by LTE-A in both FDD and TDD modes for operation.

LTE-A has provision for up to five component carriers (CC) of up to 20 MHz bandwidth to be combined, with the aim of raising the peak data rate to 1 Gbps and beyond. 3GPP Release 10 specifies 11 TDD bands, along with a range of scenarios for aggregating specific pairs of these bands in both contiguous and non-contiguous combinations. This technique combines the capacity of different frequency bands while maximising the benefits of the superior propagation capability in the lower frequency band.