NTT DOCOMO and Ericsson achieved a cumulative 20Gbps of data throughput in an outdoor environment in a 5G technologies trial.
The companies achieved a cumulative 20Gbps of data throughput in an outdoor environment using the 15GHz frequency band with two simultaneously connected mobile devices of a downlink bit rate of over 10Gbps each.
In a separate trial on February 21, NTT DOCOMO and Ericsson achieved data throughput exceeding 10Gbps at a distance of approximately 70 meters from the base station, or about 7 times farther than the distance achieved in a past trial. These companies also achieved data transmission exceeding 9Gbps at a distance of about 120 meters from the base station.
The trial, which took place at the DOCOMO R&D Center in the city of Yokosuka, Japan, utilized a specification defined jointly by DOCOMO and Ericsson, and an Ericsson 5G Radio Prototype and user devices, in place of mobile phones, from Ericsson.
NTT DOCOMO and Ericsson used multi-beam multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology, which increases data speeds by multiplexing radio waves simultaneously. They achieved cumulative 20Gbps throughput by utilizing a beam-forming technique that incorporates beams, each one consisting of 64 antenna elements to converge long-distance signals on a single target.
Meanwhile, NTT DOCOMO has agreed with MediaTek of Taiwan to develop and conduct trials of technology that will enable increased data capacity for the 5G to be launched in Japan by 2020. The agreement expands DOCOMO’s 5G collaborations to 13 vendors.
