Nokia is now slowly increasing its focus into multiple areas of early 5G mobility, with use cases including, mobile broadband and ultra-reliable and low latency communications. The company is set to push for accelerated 3GPP industry standardization while building on early customer experiences through its 5G FIRST end-to-end solution, launched at Mobile World Congress this year.
Nokia 5G FIRST comprises its radio access network (RAN) including Nokia AirScale massive MIMO Adaptive Antennas, packet core and mobile transport solutions as well as a full service offer using Intel® architecture and the Intel® 5G modem.
With clear interest for 5G mobility applications already emerging from operators, notably in markets like the U.S., China, Japan and South Korea, Nokia will implement early 5G specifications, enhancing 5G FIRST with the 3GPP 5G Phase I Protocol. This 5G NR (New Radio) air interface standard, which is due at the beginning of 2018, is designed to support a wide variety of 5G devices and services.
Nokia will continue to evolve and expand 5G FIRST as an end-to-end solution, designed to drive broader market adoption of 5G, via both mobility and fixed applications, as well as testing multiple 5G use cases. The company is building on extensive field experience already gained with Nokia 5G FIRST, which has generated valuable insights into areas such as:
- Use of radio propagation in higher frequencies
- Massive MIMO and beamforming
- Integration with existing networks versus standalone implementations
- The use of small cells in 5G deployments
- The importance of cloud native core and cloud RAN technologies
These and many other of the key elements of 3GPP-based 5G implementation will enable Nokia to extend the scope of interoperability testing with a variety of devices. Nokia will also continue its application of leading-edge technologies, such as chipset and radio frequency innovations, in its end-to-end 5G strategy.
Through 5G FIRST, Nokia is evolving its 5G strategy to drive the industry rapidly towards the adoption of standards-based commercial applications - as early as 2019. Doing so will require broad cross-industry support, and Nokia intends to call upon regulators and governments to free up and enable the use of spectrum at low, mid and high-frequency bands for trials. This will allow robust evaluation of 5G to take place, so that collectively, they can deliver one of the most important new technologies in history, one that will truly drive the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Leveraging Nokia's end-to-end network capabilities, 5G FIRST also incorporates the multi-access Nokia Cloud Packet Core and the Nokia Shared Data Layer as part of a cloud-native core architecture to deliver the flexibility, massive scalability and performance operators need to rapidly and cost-effectively deliver 5G services. A comprehensive any-haul mobile transport offer from Nokia incorporates microwave, IP, optical and fixed access technologies to address the critical capacity, reliability and latency requirements of the 5G era.
