Telecom giant NTT DoCoMo said it’s looking to launch commercial 5G services in 2020.
BARCELONA, Spain – NTT DoCoMo confirmed plans to launch a “5G” trial in May covering two districts in Tokyo.
During a presentation at the Huawei Digital Transformation Forum at this week’s Mobile World Congress event, Takehiro Nakamura, VP and general director of NTT DoCoMo’s 5G Laboratory, said the trials will take place in the Odaiba waterfront and Tokyo Skytree Town. The waterfront area is set to include trials of 5G coverage and connected cars, while the Tokyo Skytree Town location is to include outdoor and indoor coverage tests.
Nakamura said the trial will use the 4.5 GHz and 28 GHz bands, with base station equipment said to support network speeds of more than 20 gigabits per second and devices supporting speeds in excess of 5 Gbps.
Nakamura noted the carrier plans to develop a 5G commercial system this year, with the aim to launching commercial services by 2020. The company’s trials are set to follow TSA specifications, with the plan to carry out new trials conforming to Third Generation Partnership Project 5G New Radio specifications beginning next year.
In November 2016, Huawei and NTT DoCoMo carried out a large-scale field trial using 200 megahertz of spectrum in the 4.5 GHz band in Yokohama, Japan. During the trial, the companies said they witnessed network speeds up to 11.29 Gbps total and less than half-a-millisecond latency.
