Vodafone group demonstrated 5G mobile connectivity using high and low frequency bands in partnership with Huawei at the recent NGMN Industry Conference and Exhibition in Frankfurt, Germany from 12th to 13th October 2016.
The companies have demonstrated 1.5 kilometers cell coverage in the lower C-Band and 5Gbps peak throughput for a single user in the high band. It is the world’s first 5G large scale mobility field test of macro coverage in dense urban city scenarios.
The support of mobility capability plays a key role in the adoption of 5G applications such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). It is believed that these applications could require more than 100Mbps average data rates and gigabit speeds for multiusers in hotspot areas.
The performance achieved in this realistic environment study is an important reference for next generation mobile network (NGMN) and European trial initiatives to develop and verify solutions for a future 5G commercial launch plan, said both companies in a statement.
In the joint research of 5G New Radio (NR) candidate technologies, it is demonstrated that Filtered-OFDM, Sparse Coding Multiple Access (SCMA) and Polar Code works stably with the massive Multi-User MIMO (MU-MIMO) technology, and the spectrum efficiency is improved approximately three times when compared with LTE.
According to Huawei, during field test, the peak cell throughput of 18Gbps under 200MHz bandwidth in the Sub 6GHz band, and air interface latency of 0.5ms in the 5G New Radio user plane were achieved.
Yang Chaobin, President of Huawei 5G Product Line
As a leading operator in Europe and many other regions of the world, Vodafone has played a leading role in driving innovation. I am confident that the breakthrough we achieved today is just the beginning, and we expect more exciting results in the future.
Luke Ibbetson, Head of Vodafone Group Research and Development
The results of these tests are an important development and help further our understanding of how 5G mobile connectivity performs in high and low frequency bands.
