NTT DoCoMo and Huawei this week announced they have achieved a peak downlink speed of 3.6 Gbps during what they claimed is the world’s first large-scale 5G field trial.
With 24 devices connected to a macro cell running on sub-6-GHz frequencies, the two companies tested multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO), reaching a peak throughput of 1.34 Gbps. When a 100-MHz, ultra-wide carrier was used, a peak downlink speed of 3.6 Gbps was achieved.
"As the first in the world to succeed with such a large multi-user environment test, this is an important milestone," said Takehiro Nakamura, managing director of NTT DoCoMo’s 5G Laboratory, in a statement on Wednesday. "This is very encouraging as the industry works to commercialise 5G by 2020."
The trial also tested Huawei’s Sparse Code Multiple Access (SCMA) technology, and filtered-OFDM. These are used to modulate sub-carrier waveforms according to application and service requirements, the desired results being improved spectral efficiency and connectivity, reduced latency, and support for large numbers of devices per cell site.
"This joint field trial represents a significant adv ance toward fulfilling Huawei’s commitment to developing 5G technology standards before 2018," said Wen Tong, CTO of Huawei’s wireless networks division. "Results like these show we are making rapid progress and are on the right path. I am confident that what we have learned here will be reflected in even more innovative technological advances as we continue working on 5G research."
The trial comes under a partnership agreement signed by Huawei and DoCoMo in March that covers joint trials of upcoming air interface technologies. It was carried out at a test site in Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan province in southwest China.
"Both Huawei and DoCoMo teams have made tremendous efforts. I look forward to even more impressive results when we move to the next phase of field trial in Japan," said Nakamura.
