Nokia and T-Mobile hit bi-directional 5G NR milestone

Nokia and T-Mobile hit a major milestone with the completion of the first bi-directional over-the-air 5G data session on a 3GPP-compliant 5G New Radio (NR) system in the U.S. 

The test, which occurred in T-Mobile’s Bellevue lab, used Nokia’s 3GPP-compliant high-capacity 5G solution in the 28 GHz band transmitting to a user equipment simulator. Equipment included Nokia AirScale baseband and radio, AirFrame server, and AirScale Cloud RAN running 5G NR 3GPP-compliant software.

“This test is a big step forward in building REAL 5G that will work on actual smartphones,” said Neville Ray, Chief Technology Officer at T-Mobile. “We’re excited to continue our work with Nokia to move the future of wireless forward and bring 5G to customers!”

“This successful 3GPP compliant over-the-air data transmission represents an important step for T-Mobile and the commercialization of 5G,” said Marc Rouanne, president of Mobile Networks, Nokia. “By building on the tests Nokia has previously conducted with T-Mobile, T-Mobile is well on its way to 5G commercial deployment.”