Nokia announced it is accelerating its 5G strategy, broadening its focus into multiple areas of early 5G mobility use cases, including enhanced mobile broadband and ultra-reliable, ultra-low latency communications.
Nokia says it will also push for accelerated 3GPP industry standardization while building on early customer experiences with its Nokia 5G First solution, launched in February at Mobile World Congress.
Now that operator interest in 5G is ramping up, notably in markets like the US, China, Japan and South Korea, Nokia will implement early 5G specifications, enhancing 5G First with the 3GPP 5G Phase I protocol, a 5G NR (New Radio) air interface standard due at the beginning of 2018.
Meanwhile, the company says it will continue to evolve and expand 5G First as an end-to-end solution, designed to drive broader market adoption of 5G, via both mobility and fixed applications, as well as testing multiple 5G use cases.
Nokia says its field experience with 5G First has generated valuable insights into areas such as using higher frequencies, massive MIMO and beamforming, integration with existing networks, small cells, and cloud core/RAN.
“There should be no doubt about the huge potential of 5G,” said Marc Rouanne, president of Mobile Networks at Nokia, adding that the company expects adoption of standards-based commercial applications as early as 2019 – but only with cross-industry support and sufficient spectrum.
“We call upon regulators and governments to free up and enable the use of spectrum at low-, mid- and high-frequency bands for trials. This will allow robust evaluation of 5G to take place,” Rouanne said.
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