Telecom network vendor Ericsson today said it supplied 5G radio prototypes to NTT DOCOMO for live field trials.
Telecom network operators such as NTT DOCOMO can deploy 5G Radio Prototypes, including multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) and beamforming in live outdoor and indoor network environments and across multiple sites.
Radio access prototypes integrate with cloud-based network slicing enable differentiated services for consumers, enterprise and industrial IoT applications.
The recent Ericsson Mobility Report 2015 says that there will be 150 million 5G subscriptions by 2021. 5G networks, based on standards that will meet ITU IMT-2020 requirements, are expected to be deployed commercially in 2020. Korea, Japan, China and the US are expected to lead the 5G network market.
Ericsson said outdoor radio design incorporates 64 radio chains and 128 antenna elements in a compact, pole or wall-mounted form factor. These new 5G Radio Prototypes weigh around 40 lbs. (18 kg.).
Seizo Onoe, CTO of NTT DOCOMO, said: “Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics will be an opportunity to propose many different use cases of 5G, which will be launched on 2020. Ericsson’s 5G Radio Prototypes will help us to gain insights into the potential for 5G in our network environment.”
Ericsson says 5G Radio Prototypes leverage the technology innovations enabled by the lab-testing and live outdoor and indoor testing from phase one of the Ericsson Radio Test Bed, already deployed in the US, Japan, Korea and Sweden. These prototypes can integrate with Ericsson’s network functions virtualization (NFV) applications to enable network-wide slicing.
Ericsson says 5G subscriptions will provide enhancements in mobile broadband services, as well as enabling a range of use cases for IoT.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com