5G is not 5G is not 5G. 85+% of 5G will be mid and low bands, below 6 GHz. Typical speeds will be 100-400 megabits. In the U.S. Sprint holds a huge chunk, well over 100 MHz. China Mobile has 160 MHz. They can, and probably will, have better 5G than all but a handful of carriers who are doing mmWave. Huawei is ready to deliver equipment for maximum performance at 2.6 GHz.
Europe and Japan will do almost all of their early 5G in 100 MHz or less of 3.5 GHz spectrum. Higher signals, such as 3.5 GHz, fade so rapidly that until recently this band was unusable for broadband. With Massive MIMO, 100 MHz of 3.5 has the performance of 20-40 MHz in lower spectrum - with a spectrum cost of a quarter or less most places.
2.5 GHz has much greater reach, especially with Massive MIMO antennas.
The 5G standard is likely to be expanded from the current 100 MHz maximum. I believe Huawei has already developed that capability for China Mobile and its 900 million subscribers. Sprint can't buy from Huawei, of course, but Samsung and Ericsson should be able to develop a similar capability.
5G is more about capacity than raw speed. China Mobile's 160 MHz at 2.5 will allow it to serve many more customers than Telecom & Unicom, using higher frequencies. Each of the carriers has access to the 1,800,000 masts of China Tower and additional cells they own. Even adjusting for China's population, that's 3 or 4 times as many cells as Verizon or AT&T. It will be one heck of a network, on average probably the best in the world. China Mobile should be able to deliver millimetre wave-like capacity using the 2.5 GHz.
Sprint isn't as lucky, but their 2.5 GHz spectrum will put them far ahead of T-Mobile. A year ago, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam said he would bring mmWave to the whole of the U.S., which Sprint couldn't match. Since then, both AT&T and Verizon have backed off the high-performance mmWave for much of the country.
Huawei Takes the Lead in Completing China 5G Technology R&D Trial Using 2.6GHz Spectrum
Huawei 5G
Huawei Technologies
Beijing, China, Jan. 17, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- Recently, Huawei completed the 5G NR (New Radio) test at 2.6GHz spectrum in the 5G trial organized by the IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group. To date Huawei officially completed the third phase of China 5G Technology R&D (Research and Development) Trial including laboratory and field testing in NSA (Non-Stand Alone) and SA (Stand Alone) scenarios. The most mainstream NR frequency bands, including the 3.5GHz and 4.9GHz that have been tested earlier, and 2.6GHz that has just been tested, demonstrate the powerful support capability of Huawei 5G gNB. This 2.6GHz test was conducted in Huairou 5G test field and CAICT (China Academy of Information and Communications Technology) MTNet (Mobile Communication Trial Simulation Network) Lab using Huawei's latest 5G Massive MIMO 64T64R gNB. For 2T4R 5G terminals, the single-user downlink peak throughput exceeded 1.8Gbps. The successful verification of Huawei's 2.6GHz NR gNB fully proves that 2.6GHz can be one of the excellent choices for operators to deploy 5G NSA/SA commercial network. It also shows Huawei's strong determination to accelerate the development of 2.6GHz industry together with industry.
Currently, 2.6GHz with large bandwidth is an abundant spectrum resource around the world, but not fully used in many areas. Huawei has accumulated years of research and development on Massive MIMO and self-developed antennas in the 2.6GHz frequency band. In the 5G era, Huawei wakens the accumulated advantages with great power. Based on large bandwidth, flexible Numerology, Massive MIMO, and narrow-beam scanning technologies are used in 5G products. Therefore, both the vertical coverage and horizontal coverage are much better than that of 4G, and capacity is greatly improved. Huawei 2.6GHz NR gNB products and solutions activate large bandwidth advantages, farther, lay a solid foundation for the current and even future experience competitiveness of 2.6GHz spectrum.
Yang Chaobin, president of Huawei's 5G product line, said: "In the early stage of 5G network deployment, C-Band and 2.6GHz are undoubtedly the most mainstream frequency bands. The C-Band industry chain is gradually becoming mature under the joint efforts of all of us. Similarly, the industry chain of 2.6GHz needs to be promoted together. Huawei has completed the full testing of C-Band and 2.6GHz in China's 5G Technology R&D Trial, which demonstrates the strength of Huawei's end-to-end 5G products and solutions, and is also Huawei’s substantial action for accelerating the maturity of the 5G industry chain."
In the past three years, Huawei has conducted a large number of 5G NR verification tasks under the organization of the IMT-2020(5G) Promotion Group in China. The lab and field tests of all 5G Sub6GHz mainstream frequency bands have been completed. The network performance in the NSA and SA architectures is greatly improved compared with 4G network. The test results are valuable for the global 5G tests and commercial deployment. In 2019, Huawei will continue to conduct extensive 5G trials with the IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group, including VoNR (Voice over New Radio), and terminal chip IOT (Interoperability test), preparing for 5G commercial trials and commercial scale in 2020.
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