At Mobile World Congress, Shanghai, Nokia has announced that China Mobile (CMCC) will adopt its new AirScale mMIMO Adaptive Antenna (MAA).

Nokia, which has won 43 commercial 5G deals with global operators so far, created the solution specifically for the massive bandwidth and coverage requirements of the Chinese market as it transitions to 5G, Nokia said.

Building on CMCC’s leadership in the 2.6 GHz 5G ecosystem, the solution will allow CMCC to more efficiently allocate network resources between 4G and 5G users and address the demand for high-bandwidth 5G use cases.

CMCC already leads in the development of 2.6 GHz mobile services in the Chinese market. But it requires even greater bandwidth, coverage and flexibility to ensure it can deliver the most optimized 5G experience across its markets.

Nokia worked directly with the operator to create the new version of the MAA which – at 320W – is at least 80W greater than the closest MAA on the market. CMCC is now able to support 4G and 5G in concurrent mode in the 2.6 GHz frequency band, which helps CMCC to flexibly balance the two technologies.

In addition, the 160 MHz, 320W version ensures CMCC has better coverage and capacity, which helps to reduce CAPEX as the operator transitions its subscribers to 5G.

Mark Atkinson, Head of 5G and Small Cells business at Nokia, said, “The development of the AirScale MAA with its industry-first 320W output is the direct result of input from the China Mobile team on what they needed to speed the deployment of 5G services to their customers. We look forward to continuing to work with CMCC as its 5G plans evolve.”