Huawei, Vodafone Achieve 20 Gbps Speeds in E-Band

July 26, 2016

July 26, 2016 — Huawei and Vodafone have completed a mmWave field test, covering single-user multiple input multiple output (SU-MIMO) with a strong reflection path to reach 20 Gbps UE peak rate, and multi-user multiple input multiple output (MU-MIMO) for long-range UE to reach 10 Gbps peak rate.

“It is the world’s first 5G outdoor field test at E-Band reaching 20 Gbps peak rate for a single user device with high spectrum efficiency. This peak user rate is targeted by ITU-R as a 5G requirement. This is a key milestone after the two companies signed a strategic MoU on 5G technologies last year and a 5G Acceleration MoU this July,” said Johan Wibergh, chief technology officer, Vodafone Group.

The demand for spectrum to provide higher-capacity mobile access and self-backhaul has been rising drastically due to soaring mobile broadband communications traffic, according Vodafone.

“As traditional lower bands used in current cellular access become ever more crowded, there is an increasing effort in the industry to explore the centimeter wave (cmWave) and millimeter wave (mmWave) bands to meet broadband speed requirements,” Eric Xu, rotating CEO of Huawei, said. “This test will contribute to the study of spectrum above 6 GHz for 5G enhanced mobile broadband, and to promote global spectrum harmonization in the coming World Radio Congress in 2019 (WRC-19).”

E-Band is millimeter wave (mmWave) band and can be used as a complementary spectrum band to the lower-band to deliver ultra-high mobile broadband speeds, which will enable applications such as VR/AR and will act as self-backhaul for the 5G mobile service traffic.