Vodafone

Turkish telecommunications regulator BTK organised 5G open field tests at the ‘5G BTK Market Surveillance Laboratory’ located in the campus of Ankara’s Hacettepe University. The test involved the local operators Turk Telekom, Turkcell and Vodafone Turkey.

Vodafone Hungary demonstrated an online live video broadcast via a 5G trial network at the Internet Hungary conference. Vodafone’s trial system is using the 3.5GHz frequency band.

In the frame of European project “5Groningen” in the Netherlands, tests for 5G applications are undertaken in five different themes: care, energy, traffic & logistics, agriculture and living environment. This initiative from the Economic Board Groningen (EBG) was launched in early 2017 in collaboration with KPN, Vodaphone, Ericsson, Huawei and others.

Vodafone with Huawei have installed 5G network nodes at La Nave in Madrid. The deployment supported demonstrations related to the potential impact of 5G. The network is on the 3.7 GHz band, enabling download speeds of up to 2.2 Gbps.

Vodafone demonstrated a holographic call using 5G. The demonstrated speed of 5G would enable other applications such as remote robotic surgery and 4K gaming on the move.

The launch of 5G trials was announced in the cities of Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao, Malaga and Seville by Vodafone. The announcement follows the recent acquisition of 90 megahertz of spectrum in the the 3.6-3.8 GHz band by the operator for €198 million.

20 Gbps downlink throughputs demonstrated by Vodafone UK using the E band (70-80 GHz) with Huawei equipment in an outdoor scenario. This throughput leverages a single user MIMO solution using multipath to augment throughputs. Another test with a Multi User MIMO solution provided 10 Gbps on a longer range

Vodafone has started trialling vehicle-to-vehicle communications (LTE-V2X) in the UK and is planning further trials in Germany. LTE-V2X enables cars to chat with each other to improve road safety and efficiency.

Vodafone Germany and Huawei performed 5G tests combining low band and high band to test mobility in dense urban city scenarios. Using the C band, 1.5km cell coverage was demonstrated as well as a 5Gbps throughput for a single user.

Vodafone tested 10Gbps ‘E-band’ point-to-point radio network link technology, which it says will support its plans to launch 5G commercially in 2020 by providing high transmission bandwidth in the 71GHz-86GHz ranges in densely populated urban centres.