Telia and Nokia have trialled interworking between 4G and 5G networks in the 3.5GHz band.
The trial, which centred on controlling robots to reposition a moving ball, achieved 1ms latency on the 5G network. The Finnish telcos used Nokia’s 5G-ready AirScale and AirFrame solutions.
Telia acquired a temporary radio licence to conduct the trial in the 3.5GHz band, which is not yet commercially available but is expected to be released after 2018.
Jari Collin, CTO of Telia, said: “Our trial gives a foretaste of the astonishingly fast future mobile broadband connections which can be used to move robots or self-controlled cars. To function properly, these use cases require as low as possible latency in data transfer which can only be enabled by 5G networks.”
Nokia Bell Labs Research Director Lauri Oksanen, added: “5G will bring dramatic improvements to network speed, capacity and latency. This enriches our current applications and allows for totally new ones.”
Interworking between 5G and 4G networks allows LTE to be used as a base for coverage while 5G is used to achieve better data rates and lower latency.
In March, the 3GPP RAN working group agreed on an intermediate milestone for non-standalone 5G NR standards to allow earlier testing of 5G mobile broadband use cases.