Huawei Boosts Small Cell Tech With 4.5G And 5G Research

Huawei will include 4.5G and 5G network technologies into its range of small cell products, claiming it will help operators create new revenue-generating services and improve mobile broadband for users in areas of high demand.

The company is working on a number of technologies that it believes could be included in the final specifications for 5G and also has plans for 4.5G, an incremental upgrade to LTE that offers greater capacity, speeds in excess of 1Gbps and low latency that could help support M2M applications.

By using this research, Huawei says operators can deliver some of the benefits of 4.5G and 5G before launch, allowing operators to offer high speed and low latency mobile broadband to customers, while boosting capacity in transportation hubs, shopping malls and other high density locations.

Small cell technology

The firm also says it can deliver pinpoint location accuracy to businesses, allowing operators to create new services for business customers and opening up new revenue streams.

One of the candidate technologies for 5G is being used to reduce interference between multiple small cells deployed in a single location, while the use 256QAM modulation allows operators to increase data transfer rate without the need for additional bandwidth.

Licence-Assisted Access (LAA) uses licence-exempt spectrum to achieve carrier aggregation while Service Anchor reduces latency within a network, improving the performance of cloud, local virtual reality and real time control applications. Service Anchor also allows operators to provide business customers with location data such as passenger flow statistics, indoor navigation and targeted advertising and marketing.

Huawei is working with other network firms on a number of projects housed within the European Union’s 5G Public Private Partnership (5GPPP). It is thought the first 5G networks could go live by 2020.

“5G is the standard that will take us into the era of ‘smart everything’. This will create vast business opportunities while enhancing quality of life on a number of levels. Building fruitful alliances will be key to bringing us closer to transforming our vision of 5G into a global standard. Europe has huge potential for boosting 5G development by federating efforts, and the 5G-PPP is a good illustration of this approach,” said Wen Tong, Huawei Wireless CTO.

“Huawei is investing a tremendous research effort into this key enabling technology. Our collaboration with European industry and research partners is at the very heart of this commitment: we are working with European partners, including verticals, at the cutting-edge of global 5G development.”

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