SoftBank is working with Ericsson to conduct an end-to-end trial of 5G in the 4.5GHz band in the urban areas of Japan.
Ericsson said this will be the first end-to-end 5G trial including two 5G New Radios, virtual RAN, virtual EPC, beamforming, Massive MIMO functionalities and test support services. SoftBank is currently awaiting an experimental license to conduct the trial.
The companies have been conducting 5G lab trials using 4.5GHz spectrum since last year.
Earlier this year, Hideyuki Tsukuda, Senior Vice President, SoftBank Corp., was quoted: "SoftBank started to verify 4.5GHz radio back in August 2016 and now 4.5GHz is becoming the leading candidate band for 5G services in Japan together with 28GHz. We are leveraging Ericsson's Test Bed with 28GHz radio to validate a lot of advanced features at super low-latency and high throughput, which helps position us as a pioneer of 5G."
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