Huawei and NTT Docomo Achieve 2Gbps Speeds in 5G Trial

Huawei and NTT Docomo completed a “long distance” 5G trial in Yokohama, Japan, demonstrating the capabilities of the next generation wireless technology.

The trial used the 39 GHz Millimeter Wave (mmWave) band to achieve speeds of up to 2Gbps, a 10x improvement on the current highest 4G LTE speed.

See also: 5G Wireless Deployment a National Security Priority, Says White House

The 2Gbps speed was achieved inside a testing vehicle, rigged with an antenna similar a mobile device. The vehicle was driving at 20 mph. It drove 1.8km away from the 5G base station while retaining a 2Gbps signal and managed 3Gbps at 1.5km.

This is a good sign for the future of 5G outside of mobile devices. Autonomous vehicles will require super-fast Internet speeds to obtain traffic reports and potentially talk to other vehicles on the road.

Vice president and managing director of 5G at NTT Docomo, Takehiro Nakamura, said: “Long-distance transmission over 39GHz mmWave will enable 5G network deployments in a large scale.

“It opens up the new stage of the 39GHz mmWave technology and will deliver the ultra-fast experience with 5G high data speed.”

Huawei mentioned two roadblocks in 5G deployment on the 39 mmWave standards: high propagation loss and a narrow directional beam.

CTO of Huawei Wireless Networks, Dr. Wen Tong, said: “It is a technological challenge and opportunity to use the long-distance transmission of 5G mmWave.

“The wireless industry will start using the new spectrum 100 times broader than the current network to foster the next wave of innovations,” he said. “This test is the first time we have successfully verified long-distance transmission of 5G mmWave. Huawei will continue to innovate to make 5G mmWave a success.”

Huawei and NTT Docomo have been working on 5G trials since 2014 and both expect 2020 to be the year 5G enters commercial deployment. Huawei expects the pre-commercial stage to begin in 2018, with the release of 3GPP Release-15.