LTE in Unlicensed and

Shared Spectrum: Trials,

Deployments and Devices

Prepared by GSA based on intelligence gathered as part of

its ongoing industry research programme

January 2019

©Copyright 2019 Global mobile Suppliers Association 1

 Introduction
The use of unlicensed spectrum for delivery of LTE services remains at an
early stage. GSA is aware of 10 deployments/launches concerning the various
unlicensed spectrum approaches (LAA, LTE-U, LWA or LWIP). But interest in
the technologies remains high with a total of 37 operators around the world
known to be investing in the form of trials, and ongoing deployments. In
particular LAA technology is being used in trials designed to deliver Gigabit
speed mobile services.

In addition to this, there is growing ecosystem interest and momentum behind

the CBRS shared spectrum approach in the USA. GSA is aware of 11 companies
testing the technology and one partnership (Ruckus/American Tower) that has
announced a commercial deployment for a private network.

Those operators planning to start trials or push through on plans will be

encouraged by the increasing number of devices that are compatible with or
made for LAA and LTE-U networks, with big-name phones being released by
several of the leading vendors, as well as the emergence of devices that are
compatible with CBRS.

This report is the eighth quarterly report tracking the progress of the key
technologies for using LTE in unlicensed and shared spectrum: LTE-U, License
Assisted Access (LAA, or LTE-LAA), eLAA, and related technologies such as LWA.
The report also tracks the status of CBRS. GSA summarises network trials as
well as deployments and the availability of chipsets, modules and devices.

Please contact research@gsacom.com if you have additional information. GSA

makes no guarantees that the information is complete, but reasonable efforts
have been made to be comprehensive and accurate.

Key data points

•• Thirty-two operators investing in LAA across 21 countries. Six of these
have announced LAA network launches in five countries. Twenty-six
operators are trialling or deploying the technology in 17 countries.
•• Eleven operators have announced investments in LTE-U networks.
Three LTE-U networks deployed/launched in three countries; eight
others are investing in the technology in the form of trials, or pilots in
seven countries.

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 •• One LWA network launched in Taiwan, with two other operators
investing in the technology through trials in South Korea and Taiwan.
•• One eLAA trial in South Korea.
•• Eleven companies investing in CBRS trials in the USA, one
announcement of the commercial launch of a private LTE network
using CBRS.
•• Twenty commercially available modem-containing chipsets supporting
unlicensed access.
•• One hundred and twenty devices supporting LTE in unlicensed
spectrum technology, or CBRS (including regional variants of devices),
from 29 vendors.

Technology context
The idea of using unlicensed spectrum to offer LTE services and improve
downlink throughput has been around for some years and there are alternative
approaches.

LAA is a 3GPP standard finalised in Release 13 (Rel-13) and involves a licensed

LTE band as the primary carrier and carrier aggregation (CA) used to add a
carrier in unlicensed 5 GHz spectrum for the downlink only. In Rel-14, eLAA
adds uplink support. High-priority traffic can use the licensed band, while lower
priority traffic can use the Wi-Fi channel. The decision on traffic allocation is
made by the LAA enabled base station/small cell and there is no impact on
the core network infrastructure. TDD and FDD modes are supported in the
standard. Fair coexistence in the unlicensed channel is provided by a region-
specific listen-before-talk (LBT) capability to ensure channels are clear before
transmission. LBT is mandatory in the EU and Japan.

LTE-U is a pre-Release 13 technology pioneered in the USA (notably by Verizon

and T-Mobile) and is also being trialled in other countries including South Korea,
South Africa and Saudi Arabia. It is similar to LAA with CA; no core network
changes; decisions on spectrum use made by base station/small cell – except
that LTE-U uses Carrier-Sensing Adaptive Transmission (CSAT) rather than LBT
to determine when the 5 GHz unlicensed Wi-Fi spectrum is in use to maintain
fair coexistence. Development of the industry standard has been led by the

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 LTE-U Forum. In February 2017, the FCC in the USA authorised LTE-U devices
for use in the 5 GHz unlicensed band. LTE-U has an upgrade path to LAA and
eLAA.

LWA (LTE Wireless-LAN Aggregation) is a 3GPP Rel-13 standardised technology,

which aggregates carriers at the PDCP layer and uses the dual connectivity
feature from 3GPP Rel-12. LWA supports downlink aggregation only; eLWA in
Rel-14 adds uplink support. Separate nodes (a WLAN access point and an LTE
base station) are used and these can be physically separate or collocated in a
single unit. The eNodeB makes the decision on activation of LWA and the use
of the bearers. LBT is used to ensure fair coexistence in the unlicensed band.
Both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz unlicensed spectrum bands can be used.

LWIP (LTE WAN Integration with IPSec tunnel) is a Rel-13 feature similar to LWA
but performs aggregation and switching at the IP layer. It has been designed to
require no changes to existing WLAN infrastructure and in its Rel-13 version,
can support uplink data transmission as well as downlink. There are other
approaches of interest. MulteFire leverages LAA for the downlink and eLAA
for the uplink, with additional enhancements to operate without a licensed
spectrum anchor. By removing the requirement for licensed spectrum, MulteFire
allows more entities to deploy networks and benefit from LTE technology.

CBRS (Citizens Broadband Radio Service) was set up by the FCC in the US in
April 2016 to use the 3.5 GHz band (3550–3700 MHz) as a space where a variety
of users could share bandwidth for use in their LTE networks. Access to the
spectrum is prioritised for government/military users and after them, for Priority
Access Licensed (PAL) users (organisations that have acquired one of the many
regional three-year licences in spectrum auctions), with everyone else able to
request access dynamically to use the spectrum via licensed SAS (spectrum
access server) operators. The CBRS Alliance is working on technical aspects
of making CBRS work in the USA, including interoperability and coexistence
specifications.

Development of standards for use of unlicensed and shared spectrum has not
stopped. 3GPP Release 15 covered enhancements to LTE operation in unlicensed
spectrum including enhancements to unlicensed spectrum offloading systems,
as well as work on standards for use of LAA/eLAA for the CBRS band in the USA.

Work under way on 3GPP Release 16 includes standards for use of unlicensed
spectrum for 5G networks. In its December 2018 meeting 3GPP agreed to kick

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 off a work item with a view to including support for 5G NR unlicensed spectrum
(NR-U) in Release 16. The work item includes support for licensed-assisted
access NR-U (using anchor channels in LTE or 5G NR) and for stand-alone NR-U
(with no LTE of 5G NR anchor). It also covers use of unlicensed spectrum at
6GHz, to complement the existing spectrum at 5 GHz.

Unlicensed spectrum market developments

The GSA has identified six commercial LAA networks. The two most recent
launches were by Smartone in Hong Kong and TIM in Italy. Smartone’s network
went live in August 2018 in a number of busy places throughout the city including
Central, Causeway Bay, Tsim Sha Tsui, Mong Kok and Shatin. Smartone says
the network provides speeds of 1 Gbps with 5CC carrier aggregation, 4x4
MIMO and 256QAM. TIM’s network initially launched in hot-spot locations in
Milan and Turin.

Of the other identified live LAA networks, two are situated in the USA and run
by AT&T and T-Mobile. Showing faith in the technology, AT&T has continued
to expand its LAA network aggressively since launch with coverage in parts
of 55 cities by the end of 2018, offering peak theoretical speeds of 1 Gbps for
capable devices. The remaining two networks are those of AIS in Thailand and
MTS in Russia.

There are two launched LTE-U networks: AIS in Thailand and T-Mobile in the
USA. T-Mobile’s (US) network was launched in June 2017 in six locations. The
operator had previously announced plans to continue to roll the network out
through 2018 using carrier aggregation, 4x4 MIMO and 256QAM in the 5 GHz
unlicensed band, but interestingly T-Mobile announced in November 2017
that it planned to shift its focus away from LTE-U toward LAA. It subsequently
launched LAA that same year.

Vodacom in South Africa deployed LTE-U in its network on a very limited scale
in Midrand in 2016, but it too has recently announced plans to deploy LAA
(currently under test in the same location) on a national scale.

There remains only one launched LWA network to our knowledge: Chunghwa
Telecom in Taiwan.

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 Table 1: Launched or deployed LAA, LTE-U and LWA networks
Country Operator Technology
Hong Kong Smartone LAA
Italy TIM LAA
Russia MTS LAA
Thailand AIS LAA
USA AT&T Mobility LAA
USA T-Mobile US LAA
Thailand AIS LTE-U
South Africa Vodacom LTE-U (deployed)
USA T-Mobile US LTE-U
Taiwan Chunghwa Telecom LWA

Around the world, various operators are engaged in trials, pilots, or have
started deploying LTE in unlicensed spectrum technology.

Recent activities have all revolved around LAA and have included trials by
Bharti Airtel in India, plans from satellite operator Globalstar for a network
combining LAA with its Band 53 2.4 GHz spectrum first in the USA and then in
other global markets, live network tests by M1 in Singapore delivering 1 Gbps
peak theoretical downstream speeds, and LAA demonstrations by Indosat
Ooredoo in Indonesia.

In addition to those operators that have launched services:

•• Twenty-six operators are trialling or deploying LAA technology in 17

countries.
•• Eight operators have been investing in LTE-U in the form of trials or
pilots.
•• Two other operators are known to have been trialling LWA in South
Korea and Taiwan.
•• GSA has identified one eLAA trial in South Korea.

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 Figure 1: Map of countries by highest status of any LTE unlicensed technology

CBRS market developments

GSA has been able to identify eleven USA-based companies trialling or requesting
licences for trials in the 3.5 GHz CBRS spectrum band (Band 48): AT&T Mobility,
Boingo Wireless, Charter Communications, Comcast Corporation, Google,
Midcontinent Communications, T-Mobile US, US Cellular, Verizon Wireless and
Windstream are among those staging or planning to run CBRS trials. Meanwhile
Inland Cellular, which offers LTE services in south-eastern Washington and
North Central Idaho, started a field trial of the technology in September 2018
and has announced plans for commercial roll-out early in 2019.

In October 2018, the US FCC decided to alter the licensing structure for the 3.5
GHz (3550–3700 MHz) band, allocated for Citizens Broadband Radio Service.
Among other things, it decided to increase the size of licensing area, extend the
length of licence terms, and to make them renewable, with a view to making
the licences more attractive to 5G investors.

Meanwhile private LTE network deployments based on CBRS have started to

appear. For instance in November, Ruckus Networks (ARRIS) and American
Tower announced they had installed a private network for the ISM Speedway
racetrack in Phoenix Arizona to give improved connectivity to NASCAR fans.

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 Chipsets
The silicon required to deliver LTE-U, LAA, LWA, CBRS and other related
network features comes in a number of forms. Key are the modems and
mobile processors that can handle aggregation of carriers in both licensed
and unlicensed spectrum and the bandwidth enabled by such aggregation.
Baseband SoCs (System on Chip) also need to be capable of supporting the
relevant technologies on the base station.

To date, GSA has identified 20 chipsets containing modems that support

one or more of LTE-U, LAA, LWA or CBRS from vendors including GCT, Intel,
Mediatek, Qualcomm, and Samsung. (Note: GSA is aware of additional chipsets
supporting unlicensed LTE, such as DSPs and base station SoCs. Those are not
counted here as we count only chipsets with modem capability.)

Table 2: Device silicon suporting LTE in unlicensed spectrum

LTE-U LAA LWA LWIP CBRS
Mobile processors/ 8 10 5 2
platforms
Discreet cellular 3 4
platforms
Base station SoC 2 3 1

Devices
Since our last report in November 2018, the GSA has identified 20 more devices
that support LTE in unlicensed spectrum.

The ecosystem of supporting devices includes smartphones from Apple, Asus,

Google, HTC, LG, Motorola, OnePlus, Razer, Samsung, Sony and ZTE. To our
knowledge Apple’s iPhone® Xs series and Google’s PixelTM 3 series of phones
are the first supporting LAA to be released by those companies – a positive
sign that equipment manufacturers are buying into the developing LTE in
unlicensed technologies and in these examples particularly LAA which all of
those phones support.

Newly identified unlicensed LTE devices come in the form of routers sold by
Cradlepoint, Inseego, Zyxel, and Apple tablets (iPad Pro 11 and 12.9).

Since the publication of the last report, one new module has been released –
Quectel’s EM20 module supporting LAA and CBRS.

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 A small ecosystem of CBRS-capable devices has begun to emerge in the USA
with the number of such devices growing from seven to 12 over the past three
months, including a couple of new routers (including the Verizon Jetpack MiFi
devices). In addition, new routers from Cradlepoint come with promises of
future software updates to provide CBRS support. Also expected to support
CBRS is Google’s Pixel 3 phone (Google is understood to have submitted a
request to the FCC to add Band 48 capability through a software upgrade).

Table 3: Number of devices by form factor supporting each technology *

Device form factor LAA LTE-U LWA CBRS
Smartphone 48 40 16
Small-cell base station 13 9 5 6
Router 7 6 2 4
USB modem 1
Module 4 2
Tablet 2

* Where devices support more than one technology they will be listed more than once. For
example the HTC U11 supports both LAA and LTE-U so this device will have been counted in both
the LTE-U and LAA columns. Counts include regional variants of devices

Conclusion
There continues to be steady interest in the various technologies supporting
the use of unlicensed and shared spectrum for LTE services – in particular LAA
and more recently CBRS – with advanced network trials, planned deployments
and a growing ecosystem of chipsets, network infrastructure and devices. This
can be expected to grow as some large mobile operators deploy these types of
networks and increasing numbers of top-end phones support the technology.

GSA is committed to tracking this important market; the next in this series of
reports will be published in April 2019.

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 About GSA
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NOTE: Errors and omission excepted

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