NTT DoCoMo announces major 5G trials

No time for LTE complacency; it’s full speed ahead for trials of the next generation of mobile broadband technologies. Guy Daniels reports.
Japan’s NTT DoCoMo has today announced plans for major 5G experimental trials with six of the industry’s leading equipment vendors. Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Fujitsu, NEC, Nokia and Samsung will collaborate with the mobile operator to confirm the potential of 5G mobile technologies at frequency bands above 6GHz. The aim is to test new radio technologies to support diverse types of applications, including M2M, in very high capacity scenarios.

Each vendor will partner with DoCoMo on a specific trial as part of an overall proof of concept, each running in parallel, with other vendors likely to be announced in the future.

“5G studies are starting to gain real momentum as we point toward 2020,” said Seizo Onoe, EVP and CTO at DoCoMo. “We appreciate that 5G will provide significant performance enhancements to support future new applications that will impact both users and industry. We look forward to showing the potential of 5G radio access technologies via this experimental trial.” source: telecom tv.com