Ericsson today said it achieved a new record of over 1.5 Gbps 5G speeds on a single user device at C Band frequency. This is a new record in Ericsson’s C Band product portfolio. The telecom gear maker in a blog post said the milestone leverages the most advanced Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) technology with 5G. Ericsson also confirmed the optimisation of its MIMO algorithm with the help of advanced reciprocity-based beamforming technology. The optimisation forms four separate optimal beams from Ericsson’s base station towards the single user while minimising the beams’ interferences to reach the peak throughput. The live C Band network of Ericsson is present in North America.
How Did Ericsson Achieve This Feat?
Ericsson Live C Band network at its North American headquarters uses a 64T64R AAS radio that’s located at the rooftop of its office building. The C Band is supported by a 5G core network as part of the 5G Distribution Innovation Network at Ericsson’s facility in Plano, Texas. Furthermore, Ericsson said it is committed to continue bringing the best technology to realise the full potential of 5G early to the market. With this new capability, Ericsson underscores the importance of the mid-band spectrum to the development of 5G. In the past, Ericsson successfully demonstrated a live C Band network and the industry’s first 16-layer Multi-User MIMO 256 QAM with 8 UEs over 100 MHz in the United States. Back then, that test set a new C Band performance benchmark with 5.4 Gbps peak cell capacity, with spectrum being a scarce natural resource, Ericsson full-stack radio platform achieved record-high spectral efficiency (54 bit/Hertz/second). It also says the mid-band spectrum offers a balanced combination of capacity and coverage. The US is prepping for an important C Band auction and the telcos in the country are looking to leverage this spectrum to complement their existing high-band and low-band deployments. The C Band spectrum consists of 500 Mhz between 3.7-4.2 GHz, of which a total of 280 MHz between 3.7 and 3.98 GHz is being cleared for 5G use in tomorrow’s auction in the US.
