BT Group and Huawei signed an agreement for the development and live trials of 5G New Radio (NR), core network technology, and 5G customer premises equipment (CPEs).
Howard Watson, CTIO of BT Group, said: “The EE network is already the UK leader for speed and coverage, and with the weight of BT’s R&D and partnerships we can ensure that leadership continues with the introduction a world class 5G experience.”
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BT and Huawei started work on 5G research and development in 2016. In November 2017, they completed UK’s first 5G end-to-end lab testing, delivering consistent 2.8Gbps downlink throughput and sub-5ms latency.
BT and Huawei showcased the first 5G UL/DL decoupling proof-of-concept live in London at Huawei’s Global Broadband Forum. This technology improves C-band coverage and implements co-site co-coverage deployment of C-band and 1.8 GHz band.
This solves the issue of limited uplink coverage on higher frequency bands during the initial deployment of 5G networks, and greatly reduces operators’ requirements for new sites during 5G network construction.
BT group company EE and Huawei launched the UK’s first 4G/LTE network in 2012. EE’s LTE-advanced and LTE-advanced-Pro network achieved a peak rate of 970Mbps on EE’s network at Wembley Stadium with a Huawei Mate 10-pro handset.