Carrier Aggregation (CA), a feature of LTE Advanced enables telecom operators and devices to combine two or more Long Term Evolution (LTE) carriers into a single data channel. The CA enables telecom operators to enhance the capacity of the data rates and the entire network by capitalising on fragmented spectrum allocations. The operators can apply the LTE Advanced feature either on their LTE Frequency Division Duplexing (FDD) variant or on the Time Division Duplexing (TDD) LTE variant with up to five component carriers. It has been said that the five component carriers can deliver up to 100 Mhz of total transmission bandwidth for a telecom operator.
Smartphones Supporting CA Delivers Higher Internet Speeds
The devices supporting CA offer users better speed and network connectivity as compared to devices with no support for CA. The CA enabled devices can club multiple LTE connections and treat them as one as compared to non CA devices that typically dial one LTE connection between the phone and the network. The devices supporting CA when latched onto a supporting network would deliver double or higher internet speeds due to the enhanced connectivity.
With the CA enabled devices, the users can prevent minor lags during online gaming while also preventing buffering when watching a high-definition video that are often caused by patchy networks.
Crucially, the CA enabled devices also prevents network oscillations that results in the smartphone delivering higher battery life.
Devices and Telecom Operators Supporting CA in India
The Indian telecom operators including Jio, Airtel and Vodafone Idea (Vi) have implemented CA in most of its circles. However, the operators have not implemented CA on all its bands with Jio enabling CA on Band 3, Band 5 and Band 40 while Airtel enabling CA on Band 3 and Band 40.
Similarly, the users need a compatible handset supporting CA to browse at higher speeds such as select devices powered by Qualcomm sporting an X5 modem or later. The users with select Mediatek and Exynos devices also support CA implemented by the Indian telecom operators.
