Inter-Band LTE Carrier Aggregation only in 3GPP Release 11

While there is little incentive for European operators to think about LTE carrier aggregation at the moment, things might be different for US operators that have a couple of megahertz in one band and a couple of megahertz in another (relatively speaking to the large 20 MHz bands used in Europe). So I was a bit surprised when reading this whitepaper by Nomor research that points out that inter-band carrier aggregation is only introduced in 3GPP Release 11, which is not even yet out the door. In other words, we are at least 2 or 3 years away from mobile devices (and networks) that might actually be able to combine carriers in different bands. Very strange, I would have thought US carriers would have been more insisting to get this functionality sooner…

P.S.: The paper also contains interesting details on how a correct timing advance is ensured in inter-band carrier aggregations HetNet situations where antennas are distributed and connected via fiber links and timing advance to different component carriers can be different.