Massive MIMO trial was carried out on a commercial network in Nagasaki
Chinese vendor ZTE Corporation, together with Japanese telco SoftBank and Wireless City Planning, successfully verified the 24-stream space division multiplexing technology by using pre-standard 5G TDD massive MIMO technology on a commercial network in Nagasaki, Japan.
In this verification test, 24 terminals downloaded FTP data simultaneously at a rate of 956 Mbps on a 20 megahertz channel, ZTE said.
The vendor highlighted this is the first test in a commercial network after ZTE’s Pre5G TDD massive MIMO achieved the rate of 1.1 Gbps in a 24 stream field test in Shenzhen, China.
SoftBank is ZTE’s first pilot partner in the Smart Life project. The two parties carried out research and development on the improvement of spectrum efficiency, 4G/5G network integration, mobile bandwidth, IoT, and internet of vehicles.
The Smart Life project is an important strategic project of ZTE for post-4G networks. In this project, ZTE planned and discussed product solutions with operators, and verified solutions under different application scenarios for several fields in the industry.
“Smart Life is an important strategic project of ZTE. In the next 3 to 5 years before and after 5G commercialization, we will make cooperative planning and joint verification with operators to provide technical solutions and support for user experience services in the 5G/Pre5G network, such as mobile bandwidth, IoT, and ultra-low latency,” said Bai Yanmin, general manager of ZTE’s TDD and 5G products. “In the future, ZTE will join hands with more partners to expand the Smart Life project,” he added.
In July 2015, ZTE and SoftBank had signed a MOU on joint pre-5G research and development in Tokyo, Japan. In September 2016, SoftBank launched the “5G Project” and announced that it officially implement the Massive MIMO technology into commercial use with ZTE as its main partner. In March 2017, ZTE and SoftBank officially signed a MOU on the Smart Life project during the Mobil World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.
