5G Era: Deutsche Telekom, Intel and Huawei Achieve 5G NR Interoperability

Deutsche Telekom, Intel and Huawei prove the world's first 5G interoperability and development testing (IODT) based on the 3GPP R15 Standard with a commercial base station in an operator lab environment.

This successful test in Bonn, Germany, is another important milestone after the three partners initially verified the first 5G NR interoperability in Huawei’s Shanghai labs.

The test is based on Huawei's 5G commercial base station and Intel's third generation 5G NR Mobile Trial Platform (MTP). It is a critical step towards the early development of full commercial 5G equipment in 2019, accelerating the 5G ecosystem.

Deutsche Telekom and Huawei began cooperation on 5G network research in 2015 and committed to accelerating the development of the ecosystem. With the benefit of Intel's 5G NR platforms, the group realized successful IODT tests taking crucial joint steps towards 5G industry maturity.

Using Huawei's commercial NR base station and the Intel 5G NR Mobile Trial Platform, the three parties have jointly validated the fundamentals of the 5G 3GPP NR standard completed on December 21, 2017, at the 3GPP TSG RAN meeting in Lisbon, Portugal. These included new synchronization, coding, frame structure, and numerology components underlying the interconnection of the NR-compliant terminal and network.

The test configuration used by Deutsche Telekom, Huawei and Intel is based on the largest C-band cell bandwidth defined by the 5G NR standard. It also incorporates the latest Massive MIMO multi-antenna and beamforming technology enabled by the standard framework.

5G NR Interoperability test based on 3GPP R15 commercial system

Arash Ashouriha, Senior Vice President Technology Innovation of Deutsche Telekom said: ”After delivering leading contributions to the 3GPP’s work on 5G standards, Deutsche Telekom, Huawei and Intel moved swiftly to jointly achieve implementation progress through standards-based interoperability testing. The successful testing in our 5G:haus operator environment is another significant step on the path to 5G ecosystem maturity and early 5G commercialization.”

Yang Chaobin, President of Huawei’s 5G product line, said: "The success of this testing in Bonn shows that Deutsche Telekom, Intel and Huawei continue to work closely to drive the commercial readiness of 5G NR. As the standard continues to be updated, Huawei will continue to work with all parties to step up additional interoperability tests and promote the 5G industry maturity process, and to welcome the arrival of the entire industry digitization.”

Asha Keddy, Vice President Client, and General Manager Next Generation Standards, Intel Corporation, said: "Intel has been actively working with leading 5G companies to take advantage of Intel's unique end-to-end 5G NR technology and to accelerate 5G testing and commercialization based on the latest 5G NR technology. The Intel®XMM™8000 modem family maturity and time to launch will significantly benefit from this early multi-vendor interoperability progress and the realization of a global 5G NR industry ecosystem, with initial launches in mid-2019 and large-scale scaling in 2020.”

The maturity of the 5G industry is the foundation of 5G NR commercialization. Deutsche Telekom, Intel and Huawei will continue to deepen their cooperation and develop standardized products for the upcoming 5G era.