Nokia, Qualcomm Technologies and UScellular on Tuesday announced that they have achieved a world record extended range over mmWave of more than 10km utilizing its 5G extended-range millimeter Wave (mmWave) solution on a commercial network.
This milestone paves the way to bring extended range 5G service with massive capacity and low latency to even more regions across the U.S., including rural areas. The field trial, which utilized Nokia’s AirScale Baseband and mmWave Radios in the 28 GHz (n261) band, was conducted on UScellular’s commercial network in Grand Island, Nebraska. The companies jointly tested multiple locations with different scenarios, measuring distance, throughput and latency.
This milestone was achieved at a world record distance of ~10km with average downlink speeds of ~1 Gbps, and uplink speeds reaching approximately 57Mbps. Additionally, ~750 Mbps downlink speed was recorded at a distance of >11km*.
5G mmWave will help close the “digital divide” and offers extreme capacity throughout rural, suburban, and urban areas. This significant milestone shows that Nokia’s 5G extended-range mmWave solution and Qualcomm Fixed Wireless Access Platform gen 1 enables mobile operators such as UScellular to address the connectivity gap in communities that previously were not serviced or may not have an adequate internet connection.
Juho Sarvikas, VP and President, North America, Qualcomm Technologies
This successful collaboration represents another significant milestone for 5G mmWave aiming to close the ‘connectivity divide’ and expand broadband services to rural, suburban, and urban communities.
Mike Irizarry, EVP and CTO, UScellular
With 5G mmWave technology from companies like Nokia and Qualcomm Technologies, we can provide our customers with the leading-edge capabilities of high performance, ultra-low latency 5G and offer an even wider range of communications services to enhance their wireless experience.
