Verizon and networking giant Nokia have completed their first successful outdoor test of 5G new radio systems based on standards imposed by the 3GPP. The test happened at Verizon’s Basking Ridge, New Jersey location, and used 5G NR along with carrier aggregation technology to achieve real-world gigabit speeds. Specifically, the two used component carrier aggregation, a special type of carrier aggregation technology that interlocks compatible network equipment to create a stronger connection, to put it as simply as possible. This technology allowed Verizon and Nokia to achieve a top throughput speed of 1.8 gigabits per second.
The companies conducted their tests by streaming multiple 4K video outputs and VR sessions at the same time. These high-bandwidth use cases were able to go through smoothly over Verizon’s 28GHz frequency millimeter wave spectrum. In the test, latency peaked as low as 1.5 milliseconds, and stayed smooth and consistent the entire time. This testing, it should be noted, did not use normal consumer-facing mobile hardware. That’s fitting, however, because Verizon won’t be kicking off its commercial 5G efforts with mobile solutions. The company has announced that it will be rolling out 5G-based residential broadband solutions in four different US markets in the second half of 2018, which is a perfect use case for millimeter wave spectrum and small cells.
Verizon has been eager to get the ball rolling on 5G before anybody else for quite some time. The company was ridiculed for its hurried attitude a while back on the grounds that it would have to rework its 5G deployment once the 3GPP published the final version of its 5G standard. This hasn’t stopped other companies from adopting a similar stance in the mean time, but Verizon seems poised to beat everybody else to the punch by deploying fixed 5G solutions as quickly as possible. Interestingly, while Verizon will be reclaiming the residential market that it forfeited to Frontier when it sold almost all of its FiOS holdings, other carriers are looking to jump into the business world first, then deploy small cells for wireless coverage, then use those for fixed residential coverage, if they plan to at all.