5G Update -

Global Market Trials

Prepared by GSA based on information researched

from multiple industry sources

January 2018

©Copyright 2018 Global mobile Suppliers Association 1

 Introduction
During 2016 and 2017 the industry saw substantial investment in the
development of 5G-enabling and candidate technologies including lab testing
and running field trials. The development of 5G systems has now moved well
beyond equipment vendors’ labs and into operators’ networks.

113 operators in By the start of January 2018 GSA had identified 113 operators, in 56 countries
56 countries have that have demonstrated or are testing, or trialling, or have been licensed to
demonstrated,
are testing or begin field trials of 5G-enabling and candidate technologies.
trialling, or have
Between them they have announced over 250 separate demonstrations, tests
been licensed to
begin field trials or trials that we have been able to identify.
of 5G-enabling
and candidate Key pre-standards 5G technologies being explored include new radio (NR)
technologies interfaces operating in spectrum bands not previously used for mobile telecoms
services; network slicing to support delivery of services tailored to specific
types of customer or service; combinations of technologies such as massive
MIMO, or complex beam-forming that are needed to achieve very high speeds;
There have or backhaul, cloud and edge computing arrangements to support very low
been over 250
latencies.
separate 5G
demonstrations,
Note that we have revised our definitions of 5G trials to exclude – where
tests or trials
available data permits – trials of so-called ‘massive MIMO’ technologies that
do not offer at least 64 transmit channels at the base station. Such lower
order MIMO trials with 8, 16 or 32 transmit channels (sometimes claimed
by operators as pre-5G or 5G technologies), or where the MIMO order is not
revealed, are now counted in GSA figures as LTE-Advanced or LTE-Advanced
Pro trials as appropriate, unless the tests have other characteristics that would
make them intrinsically 5G (such as use of new very high spectral frequencies,
or New Radio approaches).

At least 54 projects have involved testing Massive MIMO in the context of 5G

(i.e., MIMO trials involving 64 or more transmitters, or lower order MIMO used
on new high frequency spectrum bands, or involving some other 5G aspect
such as New Radio characteristics).

At least 42 have been demos, tests or trials of New Radio technologies.

This paper summarises the global state of testing and trialling of 5G systems by
network operators. At this stage, GSA views them all as trials of pre-standards
5G technologies.

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 The process for standardising new radio networks capable of running alongside
existing LTE networks, the Non-standalone (NSA) mode for enhanced mobile
broadband use-case, was agreed in December 2017. Standards for Standalone
(SA) 5G NR mode for enhanced mobile broadband networks are targeted to
follow in June 2018.

This paper focuses solely on what operators are reporting and announcing.
It does not analyse trials and tests being run by vendors independently of
licensed network operators, nor does it compare vendors’ various technologies.

Operator technology demonstrations, tests and trials

Operators all around the world are now actively evaluating pre-standards 5G
technologies. The map below shows the key countries where this is happening.

Figure 1: Map of countries with operators that have been, are conducting, or are planning to
conduct 5G trials

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©Copyright 2018 Global mobile Suppliers Association
 Table 1: Operators that have demonstrated, or are understood to be testing or trialling, pre-
standards 5G technologies, or have been licensed to begin trials
Operator Country Operator Country
Cable & Wireless Antigua and 3Macau Macau
Communications (FLOW) Barbuda
Movistar Argentina Celcom Axiata Malaysia
Beeline/ArmenTel Armenia America Movil (Telcel) Mexico
Optus Australia Telenor Norway
Telstra Australia Omantel Oman
Vodafone Australia PLDT Philippines
3 Austria Austria Vodafone Portugal Portugal
Batelco Bahrain Ooredoo Qatar
beCloud Belarus Orange Romania
Belgacom / Proximus Belgium Telekom Romania
Claro Brazil Megafon/Yota Russia
Bell Mobility Canada MTS Russia
Telus Canada Rostelecom Russia
Claro Chile Tattelecom Russia
China Mobile China Tele2 Russia Russia
China Telecom China Vimpelcom (Beeline) Russia
China Unicom China TIM San Marino San Marino
VIPNet Croatia STC Saudi Arabia
Nordic Telecom Czech Republic Zain Saudi Arabia
O2 Czech Republic Czech Republic M1 Singapore
PODA Czech Republic SingTel Singapore
Vodafone Czech Republic StarHub Singapore
Elisa Estonia Orange Slovensko Slovakia
Tele2 Estonia Comsol South Africa
Telia Eesti Estonia MTN South Africa
Elisa Finland Vodacom South Africa
TeliaSonera Finland KT Corporation South Korea
Bouygues Telecom France LG Uplus South Korea
Free France SK Telecom South Korea
Orange France Orange Spain
SFR France Telefonica (Movistar) Spain
Deutsche Telekom Germany Dialog Axiata Sri Lanka
(T-Mobile)
Telefonica (O2) Germany SLT (Mobitel) Sri Lanka
Vodafone Germany TeliaSonera Sweden
3 HK Hong Kong Sunrise Communications Switzerland
Smartone Hong Kong Swisscom Switzerland
Magyar Telekom Hungary Chunghwa Telecom Taiwan
Bharti Airtel India FarEasTone Taiwan
BSNL India Taiwan Mobile Taiwan

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©Copyright 2018 Global mobile Suppliers Association
 Operator Country Operator Country
Telkomsel Indonesia Taiwan Star Mobile Taiwan
MTN Irancell Iran True Move Thailand
Fastweb Italy Turk Telecom Turkey
Linkem Italy Turkcell Turkey
TIM Italy Vodafone Turkey Turkey
Vodafone Italy Arqiva UK
Wind Italy EE UK
KDDI Japan Vodafone UK
NTT DoCoMo Japan Astelit (lifecell) Ukraine
SoftBank Japan Du United Arab
Emirates
Softbank/Ymobile Corp Japan Etisalat United Arab
Emirates
Ooredoo Kuwait AT&T Mobility USA
Viva Kuwait C Spire Wireless USA
Zain Kuwait Charter Communications USA
LMT Latvia Sprint USA
Alfa Lebanon T-Mobile US USA
Tele2 Lithuania US Cellular USA
Verizon Wireless USA

Spectrum bands used in trials

Around the world, regulators are working out what spectrum bands to free
up for 5G. In the meantime, operators have been working in many of the
candidate spectrum bands.

The chart in Figure 2 shows the spectrum bands that have been used by
operators in 111 demonstrations/trials where the spectrum details have
been released. The 28 GHz band has been most used. Our analysis uses data
reported by operators: note that some trials involved more than one spectrum
band, there are multiple overlapping spectrum bands reported by different
operators, and some operators report simply ‘C-band’ or ‘E-band’.

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©Copyright 2018 Global mobile Suppliers Association
 Figure 2: Count of 5G demonstrations and trials according to spectrum bands used (base: 111
demos / trials where the spectrum used has been stated; often multiple trials per operator)

Figure 3 shows the trials grouped into larger spectrum bands.

Figure 3: Distribution of number of 5G demonstrations and trials by broad spectrum ranges
(base: 111 demos/trials)

32 countries
have announced
auctions or are
consulting on
proposals for
use of the
3400–3600 MHz
band for 5G

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©Copyright 2018 Global mobile Suppliers Association
 Network throughput
One of the key metrics being reported is the peak downlink throughput of the
various demonstrations, tests and trials. The demonstrations and trials are
not really comparable, as they use varying amounts of spectrum and different
types of equipment, in contrasting physical environments, and for a range of
applications. Nonetheless it is interesting to note that many of them report
that speeds well in excess of 1 Gigabit per second have been achieved. Trials
for very high speeds are proofs of concept – it is not expected that commercial
5G networks will be able to deliver the very highest speeds indicated in the
chart below for some time to come. Figure 4 summarises the results of the
demonstrations / trials where information has been made available (97 in total).
Figure 4: Network throughput (DL) reported in 5G demonstrations and trials (base: 97 demos/
trials)

Latency
5G networks are expected to have substantially reduced latency compared
with current mobile networks. This is another key metric for demonstrations
and trials, as vendors and operators seek to achieve the 5G benchmarks. Once
again, the figures reported by demonstrations and trials are not comparable,
as they involve very different configurations (e.g., air interface latency, ‘end-to-
end’ latency, etc), and even in field trials do not take place under real network
conditions, but are illustrative of the fact that low latencies are being achieved.

Figure 5 shows reported latencies of trials.

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©Copyright 2018 Global mobile Suppliers Association
 Figure 5: Latencies reported in 5G demonstrations and trials (base: 37 demos / trials)

Future work
Many more trials are anticipated in coming months and, with a number of cities
now identified as the locations for early 5G test bed networks, we expect to see
more detail about emerging 5G network performance. GSA will report on the
developments as they happen. This paper will be updated on a regular basis.

If your company is conducting 5G tests or trials, and we do not have you listed,
please email us at [email protected].

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©Copyright 2018 Global mobile Suppliers Association
 About GSA
GSA (the Global mobile Suppliers Association) is a not-for-profit industry
organisation representing companies across the worldwide mobile ecosystem
engaged in the supply of infrastructure, semiconductors, test equipment,
devices, applications and mobile support services.

GSA actively promotes the 3GPP technology road-map – 3G, 4G, 5G – and
is a single source of information resource for industry reports and market
intelligence. GSA Members drive the GSA agenda and define the communications
and development strategy for the Association.

Membership of GSA is open to any supplier of products; systems or services

related to the mobile industry and brings many benefits including access to
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Email: [email protected]

Tel: +44 330 113 1572

GSA website: https://gsacom.com

NOTE: Errors and omission excepted

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