ZTE Corporation announced its partnership with China Mobile and Qualcomm Technologies has successfully achieved the world’s first end-to-end 5G new radio (NR) interoperability data testing (IoDT) system, demonstrating a data connection based on the 3GPP release 15 standard.
Following guidelines set by China Mobile, the IoDT connection demonstration took place at China Mobile’s 5G Joint Innovation Center and utilized ZTE’s 5G NR pre-commercial base station and Qualcomm Technologies’ 5G NR sub-6 GHz user equipment (UE) prototype. The end-to-end 5G NR system operates at 3.5 GHz with 100 MHz bandwidth and is compliant with the 3GPP release 15 5G NR layer 1 framework — including the scalable OFDM numerology, new advanced channel coding and modulation schemes and the low-latency self-contained slot structure.
The end-to-end 5G NR IoDT system is designed to efficiently achieve multi-gigabit per second peak data rates at significantly lower air interface latency than possible with 4G networks. Implementation of 5G NR technologies will be critical to meeting the increasing connectivity requirements of emerging mobile broadband experiences, such as streaming high-definition video and immersive virtual or augmented reality. It will also enable new high-reliability and low-latency services for autonomous vehicles, drones and industrial controls.
The successful interoperable connection of the end-to-end 5G NR IoDT system is a significant industry milestone on the path to pre-commercialization of 5G NR technologies, driving rapid development of 3GPP standard-compliant networks and devices.
Li Zhengmao, vice president of China Mobile Communications, said: “The achievement of end-to-end 5G NR interoperable connection testing, compliant with the 3GPP 5G NR standard, is an important milestone of 5G to productization and pre-commercialization from standard. China Mobile is willing to cooperate with other industry leaders, including Qualcomm Technologies and ZTE to promote that the 5G products continue to mature and the 5G industry marches to success.”
Xu Huijun, CTO and executive vice president of ZTE, said, “ZTE is aiming to become one of the first suppliers of commercial 5G equipment and solutions. During the course of 5G technology verification and product-based development, ZTE is actively verifying a multitude of key technologies, solutions, and network models together with industry partners.”
Cristiano Amon, executive vice president of Qualcomm Technologies and president of Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, said, “Qualcomm Technologies is committed to the continued success of China’s wireless industry, and we are excited to collaborate with ZTE and China Mobile to accelerate the path to 5G in China.”
ZTE has signed 5G strategic partnerships with China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Wind Tre, Open Fiber, Orange, SoftBank, Telefonica, Belgium's Telenet and South Korea's KT and has engaged in technical and industrial collaborations with several other carriers. ZTE will continue working with its partners to conduct 5G tests and trials and promote the commercialization of 5G worldwide, in a move to offer the full range of 5G experiences.