Huawei 5G LampSite Takes Leading Role in China’s Third Phase 5G SA Tests

Huawei said it is the first company to complete a 5G SA functional and performance test of 5G LampSite. The SA testing took place in the third-phase of China 5G technology R&D tests organized by the IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group. The results demonstrated a peak downlink rate of above 1.8 Gbit/s on the C band with a bandwidth of 100 MHz, close to the theoretical peak rate. This is the first time in the industry that indoor coverage tests have been performed for 5G SA based on the most comprehensive 3GPP Release 15 specifications.

The IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group introduced indoor coverage as a part of its phase 3 R&D tests. In its new releases of Technical Specifications of 5G Digital Indoor System and Test Cases of 5G Digital Indoor System, this group defines a series of technological specifications for 5G indoor coverage digitalization in terms of performance, functions, and networking.

Huawei 5G LampSite was used to form a digital indoor system (DIS) for the SA testing. The DIS architecture incorporates three layers: BBU, RHUB, and pRRU. The entire system supports CPRI interface and E2E fiber-optic transmission. The pRRU is a digital headend that features a high integration of RRU and antennas. The DIS architecture satisfies the requirements proposed by the IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group in terms of digital headend, IT cable, and visualized O&M. So far, DIS has been widely hailed in the industry as the go-to network architecture of 5G indoor coverage.

Conducted in laboratories at China Academy of Telecommunication Research and in field environments in Beijing, this round of tests successfully performed sufficient verification of key indoor aspects of 5G RANs, including uplink and downlink peak rates, downlink 4T4R, and uplink and downlink 256QAM as well as multi-user performance. With a 100 MHz wide C-band spectrum, a downlink single-user peak rate of more than 1.8 Gbit/s was achieved on Huawei 5G LampSite, which will be set to take indoor experience to a new height.

Huawei has been playing an active role with the IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group to promote 5G R&D testing in China. In September 2018, Huawei took the lead in starting 5G indoor coverage tests of NSA networking. Huawei 5G LampSite has now concluded all function and performance tests of 5G SA. The test results are of great value to leading operators’ blueprint for 5G indoor coverage.