Qualcomm Technologies, ZTE, and China Mobile have successfully achieved the world’s first end-to-end 5G NR Interoperability Data Testing (IoDT) system demonstrating a connection based on the 3GPP R15 standard. Following the guidelines of China Mobile, the IoDT connection demonstration took place at China Mobile’s 5G Joint Innovation Center, and utilized ZTE’s 5G NR pre-commercial base station and Qualcomm Technologies’ 5G NR sub-6 GHz UE prototype.
The end-to-end 5G NR system operates at 3.5 GHz with 100 MHz of bandwidth, compliant with the 3GPP Release-15 5G New Radio layer 1 framework - including the scalable OFDM numerology, new advanced channel coding and modulation schemes, and the low-latency self-contained slot structure. The end-to-end 5G NR IoDT system is designed to efficiently achieve multi-gigabit per second peak data rates at significantly lower air interface latency than 4G networks.
Implementation of 5G NR technologies will be critical to meeting the increasing connectivity requirements of emerging mobile broadband experiences such as streaming high-definition video and immersive virtual/augmented reality in the future, as well as enabling new high-reliability, low-latency services for autonomous vehicles, drones and industrial control, etc.
The successful interoperable connection of the end-to-end 5G NR IoDT system serves as a significant industry milestone towards pre-commercialization of 5G NR technologies at scale, driving rapid development of 3GPP standards-compliant networks and devices.
