Today, Docomo and Huawei together completed the world’s first 5G field trial. The trial was based on URLLC (ultra-reliable low latency communications) use case with a macro base station on the C-Band (4.5 GHz frequency). A new radio interface was used for the trial, which has the features like 3GPP 5G New Radio (NR) air interface.
According to the trial results, the 5G system over 4.5 GHz is able enough to suffice performance needs for URLLC ‘as defined by the International Telecommunication Union – Radio Communication (ITU-R).’
The trial’s aftermath includes deploying the large-scale macrocell for supporting URLLC. This will be further backed by a solid foundation of 5G NR across numerous vertical markets.
The air interface used in the trial had a time-slot frame structure (0.25ms), and a transmit-receive diversity technology. This helped in providing a latency of below 1ms, alongside almost 100% packet success probability for a 100-byte network packet size – covering a 1km2 area of the macro base station.
As compared to the 4G coding technique, the polar code can provide highly reliable data transmission on receiving the same SNR (signal-to-noise ratio). In the trial, the polar code also justified a major development in HARQ (hybrid automatic repeat request).
Since 2014, Huawei and Docomo have been working on 5G technology and its developments. The joint venture is dedicated to promoting global 3GPP mobile communication standardization and aims at commercially deploying the 5G by 2020. The companies are contributing together in creating scenarios and services based on 5G, simultaneously checking on high-reliability and low-latency requirements.
