10x faster than LTE, Ericsson shows off what 5G could be like in 2013

The speed of 4G LTE makes our 3G mobile broadband networks feel like stone age technology, but on Tuesday Swedish telecommunications leader Ericsson blew them all away with the next-gen network technology that's 10 times faster than LTE.

3GPP Release 10, also known as LTE Advanced, was first submitted to the ITU in 2009 and included "high mobility" and "low mobility" peak data rates which could be either 100Mbps or 1Gbps. Tuesday, Ericsson utilized 60MHz of aggregated bandwidth that was temporarily "on loan" from the Swedish Post and Telecom Agency (PTS) to demonstrate the kind of speeds it could attain with current commercial radio equipment and the nascent LTE Advanced technology.

Ericsson's demo unit included its RBS 6000 multi-mode base station and an 8 x 8 MIMO (multi in, multi out) antenna array.

"Sweden is in the forefront when it comes to usage of mobile broadband. Sweden was both early with licensing of harmonized spectrum in the 2.6GHz and 800MHz bands, and the first country in the world where LTE was commercially deployed," said Urban Landmark, Head of Spectrum Department of Swedish regulator PTS. "The demonstration today indicates that mobile broadband technologies continue to evolve rapidly."

This is of course very young technology, not yet standardized, and not likely to even begin appearing in commercial scenarios until 2013.