Nokia and Telefónica Deutschland built up joint "Early 5G Innovation Cluster" in Berlin

Nokia and Telefónica Deutschland have completed building their joint “Early 5G Innovation Cluster” in Berlin. The “Early 5G Innovation Cluster” incorporates five sites in Telefónica’s cellular network in Berlin-Friedrichshain. These sites, equipped with Nokia 5G Airscale radio and Wavence Microwave technology, will be used in the next months primarily to test and measure the performance and coverage of first 5G services in a dense urban area.

Today’s announcement follows a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), signed earlier this year, in which both companies agreed to test network solutions and technologies on the path to 5G. The innovation cluster in Berlin provides a platform to test the performance of Nokia’s 5G technologyunder real life conditions and subsequently trial specific services with subscribers in Telefónica Deutschland’s network. One of the main aspects is the development and testing of 5G services, both for Industry 4.0 and enhanced Massive Broadband (eMBB) use cases.

Cayetano Carbajo Martín, CTO of Telefónica Deutschland: “With our joint Innovation Cluster in Berlin we push the further development of 5G forward together. Nokia’s portfolio will enable testing the newest technology to keep moving forward fast with 5G in our network.”

Detlev Otto, customer team head for Telefónica Deutschland at Nokia: “The ’Early 5G Innovation Cluster’ with Telefónica Deutschland is an important item on our joint innovation agenda. The insights we will gain from this cluster, located in a dense urban environment, are going to help both companies in preparing for 5G roll-outs and developing new services for Telefónica’s subscribers.”

The enhanced Microwave technology tested in the innovation cluster is playing a key role as transport technology providing backhaul for dense 4.5G, 4.9G and 5G networks. Microwave backhaul (connecting a radio cell via radio to the network) is typically used to link small cells to fiber access points. Nokia Wavence microwave supports multi Gigabit throughput and Carrier SDN (Software Defined Networking), providing a higher degree of automation in the network.

Before being deployed in Telefónica’s live network, all equipment was tested successfully end-to-end in the company’s laboratory in Munich. Nokia’s Wavence microwave solution showed data rates of 2 Gbit/s with Dual Band technology at 18 und 80 GHz, which can be software-upgraded to 10 Gbit/s. The tests also included Carrier Aggregation on the Nokia AirScale radio access technology. By using more than one carrier frequency, data throughput can be significantly enhanced. The “Early 5G Innovation Cluster” will utilize five carrier aggregation for download and two carrier aggregation for upload to achieve high throughput rates.

About Telefónica Deutschland
Telefónica Deutschland offers telecommunications services for private and business customers, as well as innovative digital products and services in the fields of the Internet of Things and data analytics. With a total of 49.6 million customer connections (as of 30 September 2018), the company is one of the leading integrated telecommunications providers in Germany. In the mobile segment alone, Telefónica Deutschland is responsible for more than 45.4 million connections - no other domestic network operator connects more people. By 2022, the company aims to become the “Mobile Customer & Digital Champion”, meaning the preferred partner for customers in the German mobile service market that allows them mobile freedom in the digital world. Through its core brand O2 and various secondary and partner brands, the company sells postpaid and prepaid mobile telecommunications products including innovative mobile data services. The basis for this is a mobile service network based on a high-performance GSM, UMTS and LTE infrastructure. Telefónica Deutschland also provides telephony and high-speed internet products, such as VDSL, in the fixed network field. Telefónica Deutschland Holding AG has been listed in the Prime Standard on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (TecDAX) since 2012. In the 2017 financial year, the company generated revenue of EUR 7.3 billion with almost 9,300 employees. The company is majority owned by the Spanish telecommunications group Telefónica S.A., headquartered in Madrid. With operations in 17 countries and a customer base of almost 350 million connections, the group is one of the world’s biggest telecommunications providers and one of the 100 digital pioneers in Europe (Ranking Financial Times 2018).

About Nokia
We create the technology to connect the world. Powered by the research and innovation of Nokia Bell Labs, we serve communications service providers, governments, large enterprises and consumers, with the industry’s most complete, end-to-end portfolio of products, services and licensing.

We adhere to the highest ethical business standards as we create technology with social purpose, quality and integrity. Nokia is enabling the infrastructure for 5G and the Internet of Things to transform the human experience. nokia.com