Huawei and China Unicom have completed field verifications of FDD-based Massive MIMO technology – a totally huge event, the biggest ever in the whole world. Ever.

Using the existing two-antenna receiving terminal on the 20MHz spectrum, the pair claim to have achieved a peak network rate of 697.3Mbps. Massive MIMO has been touted as a technology capable of enhancing wireless network capacity and user experience, using resources already available to operators.

“Our goal is to bring considerable commercial value to operators through innovative technology,” said Cao Ming, President of Huawei’s FDD Product Line. “This successful field verification between Huawei and China Unicom, once again demonstrated the innovative capability of Huawei’s 4.5G Evolution technology. Huawei’s Massive MIMO product has the ability to evolve to 5G to protect the operator’s investment in the coming 5G era.”

The team claims the joint field test using an FDD LTE commercial terminal, demonstrated that the average mobile phone rate grows up to 87Mbps, which can support users to watch 4K high-definition video smoothly.

With the growing demand for high-definition video, along with the growing emergence of technologies such as virtual and augmented reality, operators are facing a challenging time in managing the strain on the network. While there are numerous new technologies available to increase capacity, Huawei’s approach of better utilizing current assets and investments could prove to be popular with a customer base which is facing profit erosion and which still judges a vendor by the size of its MIMO.