Ericsson says it has achieved speeds of 5 Gbps in live, over-the-air demonstrations of its pre-standard 5G technology. The demonstration, which took place at the Ericsson lab in Kista, Sweden, was observed by NTT DOCOMO and SK Telecom senior management and employed Ericsson's new radio interface concept and advanced Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output (MIMO) technology. Ericsson is developing new antenna technologies with wider bandwidths that will operate at higher frequencies. Ericsson said radio base stations with baseband units and radio units are being developed specifically for 5G trials. Key focus areas for Ericsson include small cells in a heterogeneous network environment, new frequency bands (including 15 GHz), and high-speed, high-capacity backhaul transmissions.
Sathya Atreyam, Research Manager, Wireless Network Infrastructure at IDC, said, “Though the standard is not yet defined, 5G has already evolved from a technology vision to a network and business planning consideration for operators. It is important for network equipment vendors— like Ericsson—to demonstrate the potential of 5G as a means to begin creating a demand in the communications ecosystem.”
Seizo Onoe, Executive Vice President and Chief Technical Officer at NTT DOCOMO, said, “5G promises significant performance enhancements to support future new applications that will impact both users and industry. To proceed with our joint project on 5G field trial further, we are very glad about Ericsson's success in demonstrating the real potential of 5G radio access technologies at this early stage.”
5G implementation in commercial mobile networks is expected in 2020.
