Ericsson and SoftBank, are moving to the next step of a 5G trial that started in August 2016. The comprehensive 5G trial included base stations and user equipment with control signal feedback using a mid-band spectrum at 4.5 GHz. This is now one of the future candidate bands for 5G services in Japan. After the successful completion of 5G trials in the 4.5 GHz and 15 GHz bands in Tokyo, the two companies are now proceeding with more advanced tests.
The next 5G trial will be conducted both in indoor and outdoor environments, for both device mobility and stationary tests. The trial will utilize Ericsson's mmWave 28 GHz 5G Test Bed solution, which includes base stations and device prototypes and will showcase advanced 5G technologies including Massive-MIMO, Massive Beamforming, Distributed MIMO, Multi-user MIMO and Beam Tracking together with multi-gigabit data rates and ultra-low latency which are becoming key requirements for future consumer mobile broadband and industrial use-cases.
SoftBank started to verify 4.5 GHz radio back in August 2016 and now 4.5 GHz is becoming the leading candidate band for 5G services in Japan together with the 28 GHz band. They are leveraging Ericsson's Test Bed with a 28 GHz radio to validate a lot of advanced features at a super low-latency and high throughput, which will help position them as a pioneer of 5G.
