Nokia has announced plans to launch what it is calling its 4.9G technologies by the end of 2017, and to demonstrate its new Cloud Single RAN at Mobile World Congress 2017 later this month.
The vendor said it will introduce new technologies including the 4.9G AirScale Massive MIMO adaptive antenna system by year-end to help operators meet rapidly rising infrastructure demands on the path to 5G.
At Mobile World Congress 2017, Nokia plans to work with US operator Sprint to demonstrate the new technology using 3D beamforming software.
The technology promises throughput gains of up to eight times uplink and five times downlink, with Nokia projecting peak data rates of 3Gbps using commercial TD-LTE devices..
Also at the event, Nokia will demonstrate its Cloud Single RAN running virtualized 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G radios and 2G and 3G network controllers over commercial Nokia platforms.
This year Nokia also plans to introduce a new component of its 4.5G Pro portfolio - a micro remote radio head designed to allow operators to take advantage of unlicensed spectrum to enable gigabit speeds.
"Nokia introduced 4.5G Pro and 4.9G last year to allow operators to implement network capacity increases where and when it made sense for them, Nokia head of mobile network products Frank Weyerich said.
“Now we are delivering features that will maximize their resources, speed up deployment times and cut power and costs especially in the most densely populated locations. We are making 4.5G Pro a commercial reality now and working with customers to innovate with solutions to their network densification and evolution challenges in 4.9G and beyond."