Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson and Qualcomm Demonstrate Millimeter Wave Technologies for QoS Managed Connectivity

5G millimeter wave (mmWave) connections can offer extreme capacity, ultra-high throughput and low latency. This performance potential makes 5G mmWave an optimal solution for use cases with massive throughput requirements. For certain applications with critical high throughput requirements, it is essential to guarantee a stable throughput even under heavy network load. Resource prioritization is required. Addressing this need, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson and Qualcomm Technologies Inc. have implemented a priority scheduling mechanism in a 5G Standalone (SA) NR-DC (dual connectivity) network using both mmWave and mid-band frequencies to ensure QoS particularly for uplink where capacity is typically much lower than for downlink.

This QoS managed connectivity demonstration, conducted in a field trial set up at the Telekom Campus in Bonn, confirmed that the priority scheduling mechanism can be implemented to ensure radio resources allocation per network slice or per device.

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mmWave for industry use-cases

The demonstrated performance of mmWave opens the door for the technology to enable diverse applications with massive uplink requirements. It is especially expected to play a role in enabling upload of data collected for analytics in industrial campuses, transmission of multiple video streams and immersive in-stadium customer experiences at entertainment venues, or software and data up- and download to vehicles at automotive tests tracks, e-charging stations or other mobility environments. In each scenario, this mmWave 5G SA dual connectivity with QoS managed connectivity can be implemented to ensure every device or user is guaranteed the required resources to fulfill their mission.

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Kaniz Mahdi, SVP Technology Architecture & Innovation, Deutsche Telekom: “As more enterprises adopt 5G connectivity to accelerate their digitalization, we expect to see the emergence of more mission critical and industrial applications with high uplink demand. Our tests show that mmWave technologies can deliver optimum performance to enable such use cases. Deutsche Telekom will continue to drive innovation in mmWave with partners to accelerate availability of devices and solutions for our customers’ real-world cases.”

Sylvain Gendron, Vice President and Chief Technology and Information Officer in the Global Customer Unit Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, says: “The end-to-end tests have proven that the technology for ultra-high downlink and uplink data rates with guaranteed Quality of Service is available and is delivering superior results. This will enable many new industrial and mission-critical use cases. Even in demanding environments the pairing of mmW New Radio-Dual Connectivity with priority scheduling will guarantee the demanded resources to users. This test has shown how the combination of latest spectrum-, radio- and core-assets can push boundaries and serve new 5G use cases.”

Enrico Salvatori, Senior Vice President and President Qualcomm Europe/MEA says: “This is a significant milestone, and we are proud to have worked with Deutsche Telekom and Ericsson on this achievement. mmWave is already proving its value for high bandwidth downlink implementations and this uplink milestone will open yet more opportunities for the technology, especially in high density locations and mission-critical automotive and industrial use-cases”.

Demonstration

The indoor and outdoor test bed at Telekom Campus in Bonn, Germany, was implemented as a trial network consisting of a fully-fledged 5G Ericsson Core, four Ericsson 3.7 GHz mid-band radios and four 5G SA 26 GHz mmWave radios. The 5G SA network was connected to a 5G mobile testing platform (MTP) powered by Snapdragon® 8 Gen 1 Mobile Platform with integrated Snapdragon X65 5G Modem-RF System.

During the trial, the partners investigated mmWave capabilities and constraints relating to various radio propagation conditions. Features tested were:

• NR dual connectivity and simultaneous utilization of both mid-band and mmWave
  bands to increase throughput and cell coverage.
• NW Slicing in the mmWave band in combination with priority scheduling and uplink carrier aggregation to guarantee QoS.

The partners achieved impressive results in different scenarios: 5 Gbps peak rate for downlink, 700 Mbps in uplink where the QoS can be managed for both downlink and uplink.

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In Germany, the 26 GHz frequency spectrum is allocated to interested parties by the Federal Network Agency. Its use is currently restricted to local applications. This spectrum is therefore suitable for use in 5G campus networks for applications that require particularly high data rates.

Moving forward, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson and Qualcomm Technologies Inc., will continue to work with ecosystem partners to drive the evolution of mmWave NR-DC technology.

[To share your insights with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]