SK Telecom and Nokia late on Thursday announced they hit a speed of 19.1 Gbps in a 5G test that served to highlight the considerable need for more mobile spectrum.
To reach that speed, the two companies employed 8×8 multiple-input multiple output (MIMO) transmission and 400 MHz of centimetre-wave (cmWave) spectrum, that is, frequencies in the 3 GHz-30 GHz range.
"With the world’s first demonstration of the cmWave technology, we have reached a significant milestone towards realising 5G," declared SK Telecom CTO Alex Jinsung Choi, in a statement.
"Together with SK Telecom, one of our long-standing customers in Korea, we have achieved a unique distinction demonstrating that Nokia is at the forefront of 5G-related initiatives," added Marc Rouanne, executive vice president of mobile broadband at Nokia.
As impressive as Thursday’s 19.1 Gbps demonstration is, it underscores how regulators need to move quickly to allocate more spectrum for mobile broadband.
The lower-band frequencies broadly in use by mobile operators today are a scarce resource in comparison to the abundance of higher-band frequencies offered by the cmWave and millimetre-wave (mmWave), and cannot realistically offer the blistering speeds reached by SK Telecom and Nokia this week.
Therefore the pressure is on to identify and allocate suitable cmWave and mmWave frequencies for mobile broadband.
However, as it stands, cmWave and mmWave won’t be on the ITU’s agenda until its 2019 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-19). Therefore, at this r ate it could take as long as 10 years before the speed reached by SK Telecom and Nokia in the lab becomes the new normal for consumers.
