SK Telecom has successfully demonstrated a 600 Mbps data transmission rate by using Nokia Networks’ 4X4 Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) technology. 4X4 MIMO is a technology that doubles download speeds by using four transmit antennas and four receive antennas for communication between a mobile device and Nokia Networks’ commercial Flexi Base Station platform compared to typical 2X2 MIMO LTE where two transmit antennas and two receive antennas are used. The downlink speeds and capacity enhancements are achieved by simply using two times as many antennas within the same frequency band. The demonstration will also be shown at the 2015 GSMA Mobile World Congress to be held in Barcelona, Spain from March 2.
When applied to the current LTE system which utilizes two transmit antennas and two receive antennas, the new antenna technology will double the maximum downlink speed of LTE using 10 MHz bandwidth from 75 Mbps to 150 Mbps. The data speed of 600 Mbps is eight times faster than the speed of the original LTE network with 10 MHz bandwidth and four times faster than the speed of the LTE-A network realized by combining two 10MHz component carriers via CA. It is even two times faster than tri-band LTE-A (20 MHz + 10 MHz + 10 MHz CA), which currently provides the highest speed in Korea.
