A number of Japanese organizations, including Sony and KDDI Labs recently announced that they have jointly developed and successfully implemented a 40 GHz and 60 GHz mmWave-based high-throughput wireless access network for large-scale data content distribution such as in the 5G network.
The system boasts efficient use of the millimeter wave (mmWave) communication band, which is much less crowded than the wavebands below 6 GHz.
The use of mmWaves in mobile communications is generally considered to be difficult because of the short communication range associated with these waves as a result of the high attenuation of radio power in the mmWave band. For outdoor applications of mmWaves in particular, one major difficulty is how to avoid the effects of rain, which can dramatically reduce the transmitted radio-wave power. In addition, network operators also need to avoid the effects of low data throughput in commercial mobile devices with maximum data rates of several hundred Mbps..
To resolve these, the organization have jointly developed a new wireless access network that combined 40 GHz operation for outdoor networks with 60 GHz operation for mobiles to enable large data size content delivery on the gigabyte scale, according to Sony.
The full details of the solution can be found here.
