There are some parts of the world that still don’t have 4G LTE networks while on the other hand there are some that are working hard to go beyond 4G and commercially introduce 5G networks within this decade. Japan’s NTT DoCoMo is one of those carriers, it has actually started conducting real-world tests of its 5G network technology in collaboration with Nokia Network.
NTT DoCoMo aims to commercially launch its 5G network by 2020. During one of its data transmissions tests at a commercial complex in Tokyo the network has able to provide peak speeds of over 2Gbps.
To achieve this the network uses millimeter-wavelength signals at 70GHz, this was the first real-world environment test of a 5G network since all previous tests have relied upon transmitter line of sight.
Beam-forming and beam-tracking are the two essential new technologies that contributed to the success of this trial, beam-forming focuses radio waves in a specific direction while beam-tracking controls the beam’s direction according to the device’s location.
The network performance will obviously a bit different when it’s commercially launched and there’s load on the network, nevertheless we can expect 5G to be a significant improvement over 4G LTE, but for it to arrive at least in Japan we’ll have to wait until 2020 assuming that everything goes according to plan.
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