Both subsidiaries have announced that they will start offering their customers LTE Carrier Aggregation in selected locations straight away. Based on this further development of the LTE technology, customers equipped with corresponding end-devices will benefit from average transmission rates that are twice the speed.
Jointly with Ericsson, A1 has presented LTE Carrier Aggregation for the first time in the world based on two 20 MHz frequency blocks from the 800 and 2600 MHz frequency bands auctioned in the autumn of 2013. In Austria, the Styrian provincial capital Graz will take the lead as it has already started upgrading currently existing mobile base stations in particularly highly frequented areas.
In Slovenia, selected locations across six cities are going to be covered with LTE Carrier Aggregation with immediate effect. The Slovenian subsidiary Si.mobil has devoted concerted efforts to driving the roll-out of its LTE network forward and expects total population coverage of 75 percent by year-end 2014. Customer needs and requirements play a decisive role for the further development of the network infrastructure. Network roll-out started in Ljubljana and Maribor as well as in four additional areas and will be continuously extended to further locations.
The Telekom Austria Group views an outstanding telecommunications infrastructure as an important differentiation factor. The Group’s mobile network reaches a total of 40 million inhabitants across its operating footprint and LTE services are offered in four of the Group’s eight operating markets. Following the acquisition of the necessary frequency spectrum, the focus of network rollout has been placed on LTE.
