Verizon completed its first over-the-air call on a 3GPP-compliant 5G New Radio (NR) system using licensed millimeter wave spectrum.
The call, which was completed at Nokia’s facility in Murray Hill, New Jersey earlier this month, used Nokia's 5G CloudRAN solution, which is comprised of the Nokia AirScale baseband and radio, AirFrame server, and AirScale Cloud RAN running 5G NR 3GPP-compliant software. Qualcomm provided 5G NR prototype devices in smartphone form factors.
The companies described the test as an important milestone on the road to preparing Verizon’s network for widespread implementation of commercial 5G mobile services for consumers and enterprises.
“With this first 3GPP NR standards-based connection, Verizon continues to lead the development of 5G technology,” said Ed Chan, senior vice president and chief technology architect, Corporate Network & Technology, Verizon. “By partnering with Nokia and Qualcomm to combine 5G technology with our deep millimeter wave spectrum, we’re well on the way to being the first to usher in the next era of wireless communications for customers.”
“Nokia’s 3GPP-compliant high-capacity 5G solution supports pioneering operators like Verizon in leveraging their assets to make a true difference with 5G for their customers,” said Marc Rouanne, president of Mobile Networks, Nokia. “Using the successful interoperability testing we conducted with Qualcomm as a basis, we’re now applying our standard-compliant 5G technology in this trial with Verizon to push the commercialization of 5G.”
Verizon, Qualcomm and Novatel to expedite 5G NR mmWave rollout
The expedited plan call for an initial focus on 5G NR operation in 28 GHz and 39 GHz mmWave spectrum bands. The goal is to achieve robust multi-gigabit per second data rates with mobility at significantly lower latencies than today’s networks. Over-the-air trials are expected starting in 2018, that will be compliant with the first 3GPP 5G NR specification that will be part of Release 15. The trials will utilize 5G NR mmWave mobile test platforms from Qualcomm and will employ advanced 5G NR Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) antenna technology with adaptive beamforming and beam tracking techniques.Qualcomm shows 5G NR mmWave prototype
The prototype system, which operates in millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum bands above 24 GHz, demonstrates how advanced 5G NR mmWave technologies can be utilized to deliver robust mobile broadband communications at multi-gigabit-per-second data rates in real-world mobile environments.
Qualcomm's prototype leverages the company's optimized mmWave RF Front-end design in a smartphone form-factor to test and trial real-world mmWave challenges, such as device and hand-blocking. It employs Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) antenna technology with adaptive analog beamforming and beam tracking/steering techniques, which is required for robust and sustained mobile broadband communications in non-line-of-sight (NLOS) environments and device mobility. It also supports 800 MHz bandwidth and advanced 5G NR technologies including LDPC channel coding for data channels.
