Nokia announced that it is broadening its focus into multiple areas of early 5G mobility use cases, including enhanced mobile broadband and ultra-reliable, ultra-low latency communications.
As part of this initiative, Nokia will seek to accelerate 3GPP industry standardisation while also building on early customer experiences through its Nokia 5G FIRST end-to-end solution, which was launched in February this year at Mobile World Congress.
Nokia noted that with interest in 5G mobility applications already building at operators, notably in markets including the U.S., China, Japan and South Korea, it will implement early 5G specifications by enhancing 5G FIRST with the 3GPP 5G Phase I protocol. This 5G NR (new radio) air interface standard, which is due to be released in early 2018, is designed to enable support for a variety of 5G devices and services.
Nokia will continue to develop and expand 5G FIRST as an end-to-end solution, designed to encourage the broader market adoption of 5G, for both mobility and fixed applications, as well as testing of multiple 5G use cases. Nokia stated that it will build on field experience already gained with its 5G FIRST solution, which has provided insights in areas including:
- The use of radio propagation in higher frequencies.
- Massive MIMO and beamforming.
- Integration with existing networks versus standalone implementations.
- The use of small cells in 5G deployments.
- The importance of cloud native core and cloud RAN technologies.
The company noted that, along with other key elements of 3GPP-based 5G implementation, these features will enable it to extend the scope of interoperability testing with a range of devices. Nokia will also continue to apply advanced technologies such as chipset and radio frequency innovations as part of its end-to-end 5G strategy.
The 5G FIRST solution incorporates technology including the multi-access Nokia Cloud Packet Core and Shared Data Layer as part of a cloud-native core architecture designed to deliver the flexibility, scalability and performance operators require to quickly and cost-effectively deliver 5G services.
In addition, a comprehensive 'anyhaul' mobile transport portfolio from Nokia incorporates microwave, IP, optical and fixed access technologies designed to address the capacity, reliability and latency requirements of 5G networks.
