Huawei and NTT Docomo reach 4.5 Gbps in 5G mmWave trial

Huawei and NTT Docomo have jointly announced a field trial on the 28GHz millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum cruising past 4.5 Gbps.

Taking place in Tokyo Skytree in downtown Tokyo, the trial consisted of a base station working over 28GHz was located on Tokyo Skytree’s viewing deck at a height of 340 metre above the ground, while user equipment was placed on the roof of a shopping facility at Asakusa Station. During the test the pair achieved a 4.52 Gbps downlink throughput and a 1.55 Gbps uplink throughput with a coverage range of 1.2km.

“The high-speed and long distance support is one of important technical challenges for 5G mmWave conditions,” said Gan Bin, VP of Huawei 5G Product Line

“This successful long distance live-demo on a 5G mmWave is a ground breaking achievement in our joint effort with NTT DOCOMO to build a fundamental 5G commercial environment. This success makes us more confident in realizing the goal of commercializing 5G by 2020.”

The base station supported Massive MIMO and beamforming technologies, to support long distance data transmission over the 28 GHz mmWave. As part of the trial, visitors experienced next generation video communication using a Microsoft HoloLens over the end-to-end 5G network. Huawei has said during the demonstration the voice calls were clear, and the video footage was free of any freezing.

This is not the first time the pair have worked together though. Last year, another field trial was conducted in Yokohama Minato Mirai 21 District over the 4.5GHz spectrum band, where 11.29 Gbps throughput speeds and latency of less than 0.5 millisecond were achieved.