Hot on the heels of Nokia's contention that "5G will happen faster than expected," ZTE and China Mobile announced their latest 5G high-frequency prototype microwave appliance at Mobile World Congress.
"The ZTE-developed prototype operates on a 15 GHz carrier with a bandwidth of 500 MB and boasts a hardware structure of a large-capacity baseband unit (BBU) and an intelligent remote radio unit (RRU)," said ZTE in a statement. The unit also provides a multi-user multiple input multiple output (MU-MIMO) peak bitrate as high as 10 Gbps+ and uses beamforming technology so that mobile terminals can be tracked by multiple beams rapidly and adaptively to achieve 3D coverage in all directions and adapt to different user applications, said the firm.
The prototype is designed for the commercial use of 5G, which will cover a wide range of the spectrum from low bands to high bands, hence making the air interface design more complicated, said ZTE. This 5G high-frequency prototype integrates large-scale antenna arrays, standardizing the air interface design, and using Mobile Broadband (MBB) to support diversified 5G services.
In a group interview at Mobile World Congress, Zhang Jianguo, VP for ZTE, said that his firm tested in many provinces last year, while this year they will cooperate with China Mobile to expand commercial networks three provinces with China Mobile. "In Guangzhou Province," he said, "throughput requirement is high, so delivery is important."
Zhang also emphasized that newer services must support earlier handset-models to support customers, and said that ZTE is working in three provinces with China Mobile this year.
Xiang Jiying, chief scientist, ZTE, said the value of the prototype is in its high frequency, "which can easily achieve 10GB." Xiang said his firm has 2,000 employees working on 5G, and most focus on R&D for new technology.