ZTE has completed a successful demonstration of the 40 MHz uplink Carrier Aggregation (CA) over a TD-LTE network, in partnership with Marvell Technology Group.

According to ZTE, with a terminal device by Marvell, ZTE achieved a consistent uplink data rate of 90 Mbps using  0 system configuration ratio (uplink/downlink: 3/1) and 64QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) in the demonstration at the 10th Global TD-LTE Initiative (GTI) in Shanghai, China. The terminal provided by Marvell supports uplink CA and 64QAM.

Carrier aggregation is a core technology for LTE-Advanced networks, enabling operators to combine multiple carriers at the same or different frequency bands into one transmission channel to take full advantage of limited frequency spectrums to multiplex a cell's peak rate.

Earlier at the 2013 CommunicAsia conference, ZTE showcased the F+D inter-band CA over four carriers, achieving a transmission rate of 1 Gbps.