Qualcomm has introduced its first 5G New Radio (NR) spectrum sharing prototype system and trial platform. The industry is designing 5G NR to get the most out of spectrum available across all spectrum types - licensed, unlicensed and shared spectrum - and across spectrum from lower bands (sub-6 GHz) to high bands in the mmWave range. The prototype system developed by Qualcomm Technologies aims to show that 5G spectrum sharing technologies will bring higher levels of mobile broadband performance to shared spectrum to enable fiber-like experiences, as well as extending 5G into new types of deployments, such as dedicated 5G networks for enterprise and industrial IoT.
This new prototype is based on the Qualcomm Technologies sub-6 GHz and mmWave 5G NR end-to-end prototypes which includes both base station and user equipment (UE). The Qualcomm Technologies spectrum sharing testbed has been expanded to support Listen-Before-Talk (LBT) technology, wideband waveforms with low latency, and enhancements in the radio and network protocols, on top of which new spectrum sharing technologies are being designed and evaluated.
5G spectrum sharing will expand and enhance the spectrum sharing technologies introduced in LTE, specifically License Assisted Access (LAA) to aggregate across spectrum types, LTE Wi-Fi Aggregation (LWA) to aggregate across technologies, CBRS/License Shared Access (LSA) to share spectrum with incumbents and other deployments, MulteFire™ to operate stand-alone deployments in unlicensed spectrum, as well as introducing new spectrum sharing paradigms.
This new prototype system from Qualcomm will be utilized for technology development in 2017 with field trials together with industry leaders to follow. Learn more about this on Qualcomm's 5G website.
