Nokia, Qualcomm, and Finnish operator Elisa have achieved a new world record in 5G speeds.
The three companies announced that they had managed to deliver 8Gbps between two connected 5G mmWave devices, which is almost twice as fast as Nokia’s previous 4.7Gbps milestone that was recorded in May.
The new record was achieved using a combination of Nokia’s 5G mmWave technology, Qualcomm Technologies’ 5G smartphone form factor test devices, and Elisa’s commercial 5G network, and was showcased at Elisa’s flagship store in Helsinki, Finland.
The base station used for the project utilised two Nokia AirScale radios which provided connectivity to two 5G smartphone form factor test devices. These were powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X55 5G Modem-RF System, with each device reaching 4Gbps peak speeds from the base station.
The 8Gbps speed service will support a range of low-latency, high-bandwidth services, according to Nokia, such as high-speed video downloads, mission-critical or virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) applications.
Nokia Mobile Networks president Tommi Uitto described the new record as an “important and significant achievement that will deliver incredible 5G experiences to people and businesses in Finland”.
“This is another milestone in the development of 5G services and demonstrates the capacity of our commercially deployed 5G solutions,” he added.
Qualcomm Europe senior VP and president Enrico Salvatori said that the company is “incredibly proud of this collaboration on this landmark event, which represents a significant milestone for 5G mmWave”.
“Qualcomm Technologies’ research and development efforts to drive the next generation of wireless connectivity, along with our work with Elisa and Nokia, has made this milestone a commercial reality. The throughputs achieved today show the true potential for mmWave deployments and we are excited to continue collaborating with industry leaders to make 5G mmWave a commercial reality,” he added.
According to Nokia, the 8Gbps service will be implemented in 2021.
The new 5G speed achievement comes only months after Nokia engineers beat the record set by Ericsson researchers, whose download rates reached 4.3Gbps on the millimetre wave spectrum.
