The two partners say the new facility will allow partners across all sectors to trial end-to-end 5G capabilities
China Mobile and Huawei have jointly set up an end-to-end Open Lab in Beijing, China, which claims to be the first end-to-end open lab in China based on the latest 5G standards.
Huawei and China Mobile said cross-industry partners have been invited to join the lab for collaborative innovation. The lab features a 5G system consisting of the 5G radio access network (RAN), 5G bearer network, 5G core network, and CPE. Huawei said that recent tests showed that the system is capable of providing an optimal experience with Gbps-level single-user peak data rate in the downlink and ms-level E2E latency. The 5G CPE can operate in 3.5 GHz and millimeter wave. This CPE is able to support VR HD videos, gaming, and various other video and entertainment applications, Huawei said. The two parties also teamed up to showcase a 4K ultra-high-definition live VR application.
Earlier this month, Huawei said it became the first vendor to pass China’s 5G non-standalone (NSA) core network test, which covers key core network technologies and service processes and marks the third phase of the country’s 5G R&D trial.
The 5G trial was organized by the IMT-2020 (5G) promotion group and conducted at the Beijing lab of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT).
The vendor said the test is based on the commercial 5G core network solution released by Huawei at the Mobile World Congress 2018, which took place in Barcelona earlier this year. The technologies tested include: gateway selection in control and user plane separation (CUPS) architecture, 5G ultra-high bandwidth, dual-connection to LTE and new radio (NR), independent billing for 5G NR, and terminal access management. The key service processes include: terminal registration, service requests, mobility management, and session management, Huawei said.
Meanwhile,China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile telephony operator, recently announced plans to start 5G trials in five Chinese cities this year. The company will conduct outdoor field tests in Hangzhou, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Suzhou and Wuhan, and aims to deploy more than 100 5G base stations in each city for the 5G tests.
China Mobile plans to deploy small-scale “apps demonstration” trials in a dozen other cities, including Beijing and Shenzhen. According to Liu Guangyi, CTO for terminal and wireless technology at China Mobile Research Institution, the trial networks will mostly run in the 3.5 GHz band.
Last year, the Chinese telco had announced plans to deploy more than 10,000 5G base stations by 2020. The operator also said that it expects to launch a pre-commercial 5G service in 2018.
