China Mobile tests 5G with Samsung and Massive MIMO with Huawei

China Mobile
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China Mobile has unlocked a couple of new achievements in its journey to 5G, including a 5G prototype trial with Samsung Electronics and a Massive MIMO installation in Shanghai with Huawei Technologies.

Samsung announced it had successfully conducted a 5G prototype trial in Beijing in conjunction with China Mobile Research Institute (CMRI), which Samsung described as “a cooperation milestone” between the two companies since Samsung became a member of China Mobile 5G Innovation Center in June 2016.

With Samsung’s ultra-high frequency 5G prototype system and devices powered by advanced beamforming technology, Samsung and CMRI sought to jointly verify mmWave technology’s performance and frequency characteristics, including mobility, peak throughput, and multi-user scheduling capacity, as well as mmWave transmission in indoor environments, penetration loss, etc.

During the 5G trial test, key technologies such as spatial modulation and FBMC (Filter Bank Multicarrier) were validated for the 3.5-GHz frequency band, testing performance of throughput and outband emission.

“Over many years of research and development, Samsung has accumulated a wealth of technology and experience related to 5G technology and product development,” said Dai Jun Zhang, VP and Head of Samsung R&D Institute China – Beijing. “To accelerate the realization of 5G standardization and commercialization in China, we will continue to strengthen our joint efforts with the Chinese government, as well as operators in the future.”

Meanwhile, China Mobile’s Shanghai Branch and Huawei have jointly deployed what Huawei says is the world’s first wideband Massive MIMO site.

The site uses the Massive MIMO solution launched by China Mobile and Huawei in September 2015 that promises 5-6 Gbps of capacity from a single site.

According to Huawei, a single module supports activation of three carriers on 2.6 GHz. The average spectral efficiency of cells can be improved 3-fold. Along with the rapid development of video services, the spectral efficiency can be increased more than 5-fold.

Huawei said its Massive MIMO solution provides an uplink 8-stream capability configuration to continuously enhance the uplink performance of China Mobile’s TD-LTE networks. The live network in Shanghai is serving as a verification platform, with peak cell throughput rates reaching 72 Mbps uplink, and 630 Mbps downlink.

Huawei also said the solution can be deployed expediently as only one optical fiber and one power cable are required to ensure smooth deployment from an engineering perspective.

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