Nokia has completed Over-the-Air (OTA) 5G NR (new radio) trials in C-band spectrum, in Dallas, Texas.
The drive tests, which achieved stable peak throughput speeds of over 1 Gbps, confirmed that Nokia’s solution is ready for commercial deployment ahead of the U.S. C-band spectrum auction in December.

The C-band, between 3.4 GHz and 4.2 GHz, is a crucial resource for mobile operators such as AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile US to offer the best mix of 5G network capacity and coverage to subscribers across the United States.

Tommi Uitto, president of Mobile Networks at Nokia, said: “This test, in the C-band, is significant because it proves that we have a solution ready-to-go following the completion of the spectrum auctions in the U.S. later this year.”

Nokia conducted the demonstration in Dallas’ Cypress Waters neighbourhood using its AirScale 5G base station equipment. The setup utilized 100 MHz of spectrum at 3.75 GHz with a 4×4 MIMO and configuration in Non-Standalone (NSA) mode combined with Nokia’s Core network.

During drive testing, Nokia monitored network performance and demonstrated that the handovers happened between C-Band base stations as expected. The connection and performance was stable throughout the entire test, highlighting the robustness of the solution and its readiness for commercial implementation.

The U.S. will hold a spectrum auction for the C-band in December with network deployments expected in the first half of 2021. C-band spectrum will be prime spectrum for providing 5G services in the U.S.

Nokia recently announced that it achieved 5G speeds of up to 4.7 Gbps in OTA tests performed on AirScale base station equipment being deployed in major U.S. carriers’ commercial networks. This most recent achievement in C-Band is another example of the strong progress Nokia has made in 5G over the past 18 months.