Globe Telecom in the Philippines has announced plans to start the commercial launch of both LTE carrier aggregation (CA) and LTE Broadcast next year.

Globe has been trialing LTE CA and LTE Broadcast, which is based on evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (eMBMS) technology.

Emmanuel Estrada, the company’s head of network technologies strategy, said Globe tested LTE CA earlier this year and demonstrated a maximum speed of 230Mb/s.

LTE CA technology can sharply increase the efficient utilisation of frequencies, which enables operators to use non-contiguous blocks of spectrum in multiple frequency bands to achieve higher bandwidths to meet growing demand for wireless broadband services.

Estrada said the technology will help it address the demand for data-heavy multimedia applications, which are becoming more and more popular in the country.

He said Globe also is studying LTE Broadcast to more efficiently deliver video and multimedia services over its LTE network. “It will enable more efficient use of our bandwidth resources.”

The mobile video service will be available next year in select areas of the country, he said. To watch live TV on mobile devices, he said customers just need to download its Live TV App and use an eMBMS-capable device.

Estrada noted that the launch will depend on the availability of LTE Broadcast-compatible devices.

Market leader Smart ran LTE Broadcast trials last November on the 2.1GHz band.

UK operator EE said in July it was looking to begin trials of LTE Broadcast later this year, with possible commercial launches following late in 2015.

Both the trial and initial launch, the company said, would focus on stadiums before wider deployment in 2016. But it said the dates are far from set in stone and depend on the industry resolving a number of issues, including device availability and content rights management.