Telus LAA Wireless Tests Hit Download Speeds of 970 Mbps Indoors in Vancouver

Telus has announced it has completed its first test of Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) in both indoor and outdoor wireless networks, reaching nearly 1Gbps download speeds indoors, the first wireless carrier to do so in Canada.

According to the company, the tests at the 5G Living Lab in Vancouver achieved “download speeds of 970 Mbps indoors and 966 Mbps outdoors using 80MHz of aggregated spectrum in a live, dynamic production network.”

LAA is part of LTE Advanced Pro technologies which utilizes licensed wireless spectrum, with unlicensed spectrum available publicly, which allows for faster download speeds and a “better overall network experience.”

“TELUS is committed to meeting Canadians’ ever-growing demand for fast, reliable mobile connectivity and offering our customers the best network experience. As the first carrier in Canada to successfully deploy LAA, we’re able to combine licensed and unlicensed spectrum to offer our customers with even faster speeds and more capacity,” said Ibrahim Gedeon, TELUS’ Chief Technology Officer, in a press release.

LAA deployments will arrive later this year says Telus, and throughout 2018 “in various locations across Canada that have high volumes of pedestrian traffic, including hotels, office buildings, arenas and public outdoor sites.”

Here’s a video from Ericsson explaining LAA:

This summer, Telus and partner Huawei announced they had completed a successful 5G wireless pilot in Vancouver.

Recently, PCMag crowned the Telus wireless network as “Canada’s Fastest Wireless Network.”