Japan’s broadband company eAccess has announced that it has completed specification testing for LTE, achieving download speeds of 300Mbps – which is seven times faster than currently available via mainstream mobile services.
The company offers mobile services through its eMobile brand, looking to launch data communication services over its LTE network in March this year – making the second Japanese conmapny after NTT DoCoMo to offer the 4G technology at commercial level.
In November 2011 eAccess launched a trial of fourth-generation LTE services using the 1.75GHz band ahead of its proposed March 2012 launch. The operator is using the pilot trial to evaluate readiness of the LTE network ahead of the service launch – initially thought to be 75Mbps/25Mbps (down/uplink). It is clear that the rollout of LTE is already underway at eMobile’s HSPA+ base stations, as part of a plan to upgrade them to be LTE compatible.
