R&S verifies TDD/FDD LTE bands for mixed-carrier aggregation

Feb. 16, 2015

Rohde & Schwarz announced it has successfully verified combining various frequency bands in mixed-mode TDD and FDD mixed-carrier aggregation. During the test, the R&S CMW500 wideband radio communication tester from Rohde & Schwarz simulated an LTE network with simultaneous time division duplex (TDD) and frequency division duplex (FDD). The data was successfully transferred to a DUT on multiple aggregated carriers in different duplex modes.

The company said the R&S CMW500 the only test platform to support RF and protocol tests for carrier aggregation in line with 3GPP Rel. 12 for TDD/FDD joint operation. With this test result, Rohde & Schwarz has paved the way for the entire wireless ecosystem, effectively driving the development of future wireless devices for mixed carrier aggregation.

Network operators often have spectra in various frequency bands, which they exploit in TDD or FDD mode depending on conditions. Mixed-mode TDD/FDD will now enable them to use carrier aggregation to combine FDD and TDD cells. This not only gives network operators more flexibility in band and spectrum selection, they can also offer higher data rates to subscribers. Carrier aggregation was previously used to combine multicarrier signals with the same mode (FDD or TDD).

The TDD/FDD joint operation test functionality is now available for the R&S CMW500 RF and protocol testers from Rohde & Schwarz. Rohde & Schwarz will display the setup at the Mobile World Congress, March 2-5, in Barcelona.

About the Author

Rick Nelson | Contributing Editor

Rick is currently Contributing Technical Editor. He was Executive Editor for EE in 2011-2018. Previously he served on several publications, including EDN and Vision Systems Design, and has received awards for signed editorials from the American Society of Business Publication Editors. He began as a design engineer at General Electric and Litton Industries and earned a BSEE degree from Penn State.

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