Operator is adding 5G base stations ahead of commercial launch in 2020
China Telecom has announced the deployed a new 5G base station in Lanzhou, in China’s Gansu province, expanding its pilot project for 5G networks to six cities. The telco previously deployed 5G base stations in Shenzhen, Shanghai, Suzhou, Chengdu and Xiong’an new district in Baoding.
China Telecom said it plans to run laboratory and networks tests until the end of next year, before commencing pre-commercialization of 5G technology in 2019. The telco aims to launch commercial 5G services in 2020.
China Telecom set up its 5G station in tech city Shenzhen in early October covering various industrial zones including Shenzhen Software Industry Base. With these 5G base stations, the Asian operator said it can undertake end-to-end testing for key 5G technologies.
Last month, China Telecom signed an agreement with the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) to collaborate on several areas related to 5G including smart manufacturing, internet of things, smart cities, Big Data and networking.
China Telecom also said it is also looking into the use of cellular networks for emerging areas such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), the internet of vehicles.
Last month, the Chinese government kicked off the third phase of 5G technology research and development tests. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said the third phase of technical tests aims to get pre-commercial products ready for when the first version of 5G standard comes out in June next year.
China recently completed the second phase of 5G tests. The Asian nation established the IMT-2020 development group in 2013 in a move to foster the development of 5G technologies. The IMT-2020 Promotion Group completed the initial phase of its trial program in 2016. That phase included testing wireless technologies including massive multiple-input-multiple-output, novel multiple access, new waveforms, advance coding, ultra-dense network implementations and high-frequency communications. The trial phase also included network slicing, edge computing and network function reconstruction.
NTT DoComo, Huawei complete 5G trial in Tokyo
In related 5G news, Chinese equipment maker Huawei and Japan’s mobile operator NTT DoCoMo, have successfully completed high speed data transmission over a distance of 1.2km on the 28GHz millimetre wave (mmWave) spectrum.
Huawei said that the field trial at Tokyo Skytree, in downtown Tokyo, achieved more than a 4.52Gbps downlink throughput and a 1.55Gbps uplink throughput with a coverage range of 1.2km.
For the trial, the Chinese vendor supplied one of its 5G base stations which supports Massive MIMO and beamforming technologies. In addition, it also provided the 5G core network and 5G mmWave test user equipment used in the tests.
“The high-speed and long distance support is one of important technical challenges for 5G mmWave conditions. This successful long distance live-demo on a 5G mmWave is a groundbreaking achievement in our joint effort with NTT DoCoMo to build a fundamental 5G commercial environment,” said Gan Bin, VP of Huawei 5G product line.
In November 2016, Huawei and NTT DoCoMo carried out a large-scale field trial using 200 megahertz of spectrum in the 4.5 GHz band in Yokohama, Japan. During the trial, the companies said they witnessed network speeds up to 11.29 Gbps total and less than half-a-millisecond latency. Earlier this year, the telco kicked off a 5G trial in Japan’s capital Tokyo.
