Wireless network measurement solutions provider Anite has announced a commercial LTE-A and carrier aggregation (“CA”) testing solution for mobile network operators and network infrastructure vendors. Using the Nemo Outdoor, operators can monitor the performance and quality of their LTE-A networks.

LTE-A CA measurements with Nemo Outdoor provide detailed information about the primary and secondary component carriers, including physical cell ID, signal levels and quality. Also link adaptation and radio resource allocation can be monitored among many other detailed LTE parameters. The new carrier aggregation testing feature complements the testing capabilities of existing mobile technologies (2G, 3G, 4G) in addition to supporting the analysis and optimisation of heterogeneous networks where a combination of macro, pico and small cells are deployed to maximise coverage and capacity.

CA is a method used in LTE-A which allows mobile operators to increase the bandwidth and, consequently, the bitrates. This is accomplished by combining spectrum resources. Each aggregated carrier is referred to as a component carrier, and each component carrier corresponds to a serving cell.