Deutsche Telekom and Huawei go live with Europe’s first 5G connection

Deutsche Telekom and Huawei go live with Europe’s first 5G connection

Deutsche Telekom’s network in Germany is 5G Ready: On DT’s commercial network in central Berlin, it has gone live with a 5G connection at over two gigabit per second and a low latency of three milliseconds over a 3.7 gigahertz spectrum link. Powered by Huawei user equipment using 3GPP specifications for 5G New Radio (NR), the deployment on commercial sites is the first in Europe and marks an important advancement in the global development of 5G.

The new 5G radio will be critical for meeting our customers’ ever-growing connectivity requirements that are steadily growing with more and more network connections, “said Claudia Nemat, Deutsche Telekom Board member for Technology and Innovation. “Our success demonstrates the feasibility of our plans to deliver a superior, new customer experience.”

“As long time partners, both Deutsche Telekom Group and Huawei have joined hands to successfully test 5G NR equipment in field environments based on latest 3GPP R15 standards. These achievements highlight the capabilities of the 5G NR equipment to meet operators’ requirements for addressing new business opportunities for end users. Huawei is confident that the partnership with Deutsche Telekom will fully prepare the commercial launch of 5G NR services in Europe by 2020 thanks to 3GPP standardisation efforts, “said Huimin Zhu, vice president of Huawei’s 5G.

The implementation in a live real-world setting in central Berlin using the Huawei equipment and software is based on the pre-standard 5G that closely tracks the 3GPP global standard for so-called ‘Non-Standalone New Radio’. Không có chế độ Non-Standalone 5G (TPM) for the enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) use case, it is meant that the link is anchored in LTE while 5G NR carriers are used to boost data-rates and reduce latency. Therefore, 5G New Radio will be deployed with the evolution of 4G LTE as the baseline for wide-area broadband coverage. Specifications that will be complete by December 2017 as part of the first drop of 3GPP Release 15.

5G New Radio has characteristics that make it ideal to meet the 6Ghz sub-band needs for 5G applications that will require mobility support, wide area coverage, as well as multi-gigabit throughput speeds and millisecond low latency. “With this real-world achievement, Deutsche Telekom is making its first major step towards a 5G network launch,” says Bruno Jacobfeuerborn. “When the standard is defined, we will trial it in 2018 to prepare the ground for a wider deployment of commercial sites and the offering of devices for the mass market as they become available.”

Click below to share this article

Browse our latest issue

Intelligent CIO Europe

View Magazine Archive