HKT has commercially deployed TM9 on its all Business Connected LTE network in Hong Kong – in association with Huawei.
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Huawei said it will work with HKT on commercial testing of multiple-antenna technology based on TM9 – ensuring more user experience through multiple-antenna networking technology.
TM9, a new transmission mode defined by 3GPP Release 10, represents an innovation for the evolution of multiple-antenna technologies. TM9, introducing new Reference Signal patterns, enables multiple-antenna technology evolution towards 8T8R or higher, while the existing network supports a maximum of four ports.
TM9 allows eNodeBs to form UE-specific beams for single user multiple-input multiple-output (SU-MIMO) or multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO), and to adjust beams based on changes in UE locations to significantly improve spectral efficiency.
A 32T32R massive MIMO TM9 can achieve up to 6.5-fold capacity increase over a 2T2R cell, and the gains of massive MIMO or other multiple-antenna technologies will continue to increase as 3GPP specifications evolve.
TM9 can significantly improve the peak throughput of cell edge users, even on the commonly deployed 2T2R or 4T4R networks. Engineers can use TM9 together with TM7/8 in TD-LTE to improve user experience in scenarios such as SU-MIMO or multi-carrier.
“TM9 is the evolutionary trend, and it can enhance network capacity and customer service experience in Hong Kong’s extremely high density environment,” Peter Lam, managing director of HKT Engineering, said.
“All mainstream terminals newly released this year are expected to support TM9. We predict that the penetration rate of active TM9-capable terminals will reach 20 percent or even higher around the world by the end of 2018,” Veni Shone, president of Huawei LTE Product Line, said.
