Ericsson has announced its partnership with Deutsche Telekom and the Greek mobile network operator Cosmote to improve capacity on 5G networks. The firm revealed that the three had successfully proved the viability of frequency bands above 100GHz for use in the backhaul portion of 5G networks.
Ericsson explains that wireless backhaul in 5G networks operates on 4GHz to 80GHz frequency bands but said that capacity could be increased using a higher frequency. During the trial, the three firms deployed W-band (92GHz-114GHz) technology and found that it could perform at the same level as E-band (70/80GHz) but W-band’s high frequency means the backhaul portion can deal with a higher capacity.
In the tests, the W-band hop was installed parallel to the E-band hop to demonstrate that W-band was just as good. The firms recorded a speed of 5.7Gbps over 1.5km and 10Gbps over 1km.
Commenting on the trials, Jonas Hansryd, Research Manager, Microwave Systems, Ericsson, said:
“Ericsson has a proud history of innovation with Deutsche Telekom. Two years ago, we showed for the first time the possibility to transport more than 100Gbps over a kilometer distance using millimeter wave bands. In our latest joint project, we continue on that path showing the ability to evolve today’s wireless transport by supporting additional, high-capacity backhaul spectrum for 5G and future 6G.”
As alluded to by Hansryd, the development of backhaul capacity will not only benefit 5G networks which are becoming more widespread around the world, but they will also benefit the next generation 6G networks which are expected around 2030.
