Huawei completes industry's first 3.5 GHz massive MIMO with CA test

NEW DELHI: As MWC 2017 is drawing near, in cooperation with SoftBank, Huawei recently completed the Massive MIMO verification test using the operator's 40 MHz spectrum on the 3.5 GHz band in Tokyo, Japan.

The pair adopted Massive MIMO and multi-carrier technologies with the peak downlink rate reaching 1.4 Gbps. The test represents another collaboration regarding Massive MIMO between the two companies since September 2016 when SoftBank announced the "5G Project" program using 2.5GHz band on the TDD (AXGP) commercial network operated by Wireless City Planning, a SoftBank group company, and is also the world's first Massive MIMO trial on the 3.5 GHz band.

"The 3.5 GHz band, with its abundant bandwidth resources, has already gained a reputation as one of the most popular bands throughout the world. This offers a great opportunity for the global development of LTE TDD, and has grown increasingly important as a 5G catalyst to assume the spotlight position of the global mobile industry. Massive MIMO, featuring the incorporation of massive antennas and 3D beamforming, enhances spectrum multiplexing among multiple UEs to significantly improve spectral efficiency without additionally increasing site density or bandwidth. The 3.5 GHz Massive MIMO test further explores the latent potential of 3.5 GHz spectrum, and is expected to open up a new commercial era of LTE-Advanced,"  a statement said.

As a global leading mobile operator, SoftBank has experienced several years of exponential growth, showing a remarkable increase in traffic. Traffic has risen by a factor of 2,300 times within the last ten years, and this continued growth trend is expected to remain stable over the next three to five years.

In response to the rapid growth in traffic, SoftBank, with the assistance of Huawei, has deployed a large number of commercial Massive MIMO sites at key locations in Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya since September 2016. In February 2017, Huawei secured the lead in completing massive MIMO+multi-carrier verifications on the 3.5 GHz band, consolidating SoftBank's technological advantages in network deployment using 3.5 GHz spectrum.

Together with SoftBank, Huawei seeks to further entrench industrial cooperation and joint innovation regarding LTE evolution to develop the most advanced mobile communications technologies, with the aim of enabling more users to enjoy ubiquitous quality mobile internet and IoT services.