Telecom equipment and software major Nokia announced the launch of 4.9G technology and AirScale Active Antennas ahead of MWC 2017.
The Espoo, Finland-based Nokia said 4.9G technology, which will be available by the end of 2017, allows mobile operators to enhance their network performance and manage the infrastructure demands on the path to 5G.
Nokia said its 4.9G massive MIMO Adaptive Antenna will increase cell capacity by up to five times, while 4.5G Pro AirScale Micro Remote Radio Head (RRH) will allow operators to take advantage of unlicensed spectrum to enable Gigabit speeds.
Nokia 4.9G will provide significant increases in capacity and several Gigabits of speed-per-second on the path to 5G.
The introduction of the AirScale massive MIMO Adaptive Antenna is a milestone in the delivery of 4.9G, driving capacity increases for megacity deployments.
Nokia in association with the US telecom service provider Sprint will demo the technology using 3D Beamforming software to deliver throughput gains of up to 8 fold uplink and fivefold downlink. The demonstration at Mobile World Congress 2017 will leverage devices operating on TD-LTE band 41.
The AirScale massive MIMO launch complements Nokia 4.9G Cloud RAN technology. Nokia will demo Cloud Single RAN running virtualized 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G radios and 2G and 3G network controllers over commercial AirScale and AirFrame platforms.
AirScale Compact Active Antenna will provide a leaner site solution that increases performance and lowers operators’ costs.
4.5G Pro Gigabit data speeds will become a reality for telecom operators with limited and disparate blocks of spectrum. Telecoms can now densify networks with the commercial introduction of a new AirScale Micro Remote Radio Head (RRH). This will allow macro sites to leverage unlicensed spectrum using Licensed Assisted Access (LAA).
Nokia said enhancements to AirScale base station will allow mobile operators to densify networks in city locations while slashing CO2 emissions and reducing operational costs by up to 40 percent.
Nokia Zero Emission 3.0 will reduce operators’ energy consumption by up to 50 percent using new hardware and software features while the Intelligent Deployment Platform uses automation to accelerate AirScale deployment life cycle by up to 40 percent.
“Nokia introduced 4.5G Pro and 4.9G last year to allow operators to implement network capacity increases where and when it made sense for them. Now we are delivering features that will maximize their resources, speed deployment times and cut power and costs especially in the most densely populated locations,” said Frank Weyerich, head of Mobile Networks Products at Nokia.
