China Mobile deploys Nokia’s Massive MIMO solution, accelerating transition to 5G

Nokia has announced that China Mobile (CMCC) will adopt its new AirScale mMIMO Adaptive Antenna (MAA), created specifically for the massive bandwidth and coverage requirements of the Chinese market as it transitions to 5G.

Building on CMCC’s leadership in the 2.6 GHz 5G ecosystem, the Nokia MAA ensures that, as one of the world’s biggest operators, CMCC can more efficiently allocate network resources between 4G and 5G users and address the demand for high-bandwidth 5G use cases.

As a 5G pioneer, CMCC already leads in the development of 2.6 GHz mobile services in the Chinese market. But it requires even greater bandwidth, coverage and flexibility to ensure it can deliver the most optimized 5G experience across its markets.

Nokia worked directly with the operator to create the new version of the MAA which – at 320W – is at least 80W greater than the closest MAA on the market. CMCC is now able to support 4G and 5G in concurrent mode in the 2.6 GHz frequency band, which helps CMCC to flexibly balance the two technologies. In addition, the 160 MHz, 320W version ensures CMCC has better coverage and capacity, which helps to reduce CAPEX as the operator transitions its subscribers to 5G.

Mark Atkinson, Head of 5G and Small Cells business at Nokia, said: “Nokia has been operating in China for 40 years, and we are pleased to have this opportunity to work so closely with an industry leader like China Mobile. The development of the AirScale MAA with its industry-first 320W output is the direct result of input from the China Mobile team on what they needed to speed the deployment of 5G services to their customers. We look forward to continuing to work with CMCC as its 5G plans evolve.”

The MAA uses 64 transmit and 64 receive antenna elements, which combined deliver a total of 320W output power, the highest of any MAA in the industry.

Nokia currently has 43 commercial 5G deals with operators around the world and is involved in more than 100 5G-related customer engagements. During Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Nokia won the coveted 5G Leadership Award for demonstrating leadership across the 5G ecosystem – through innovation, collaborative R&D, a wide range of industry partnerships and significant contribution across both the technical and business aspects of this technology.