Telefónica Germany and Nokia Enter 5G Testing Stage in Berlin

Almost a year after signing a memorandum of understanding on the project, Telefónica Germany and Nokia said they have completed the construction of their so-called “5G Innovation Cluster” in Berlin, and are now gearing up to start testing the “performance and coverage” of 5G services in a dense urban area. According to the German carrier, the “cluster” consists of five sites and will be used to test Nokia’s 5G technology “under real life conditions” and trial services with Telefónica Germany subscribers. The carrier specifically cited its interest in testing 5G use cases for the industrial sector under the Industry 4.0 banner, as well as use cases for enhanced massive broadband (eMBB). They plan to use five-carrier aggregation for download and two-carrier aggregation for upload to achieve high throughput rates. The carrier and vendor also plan to test what they described as enhanced microwave technology as a backhaul option for dense 4.5G, 4.9G and 5G networks, linking small cells to fiber access points.