Qualcomm, ZTE and Wind Tre announce collaboration on 5G trials at 3.7 GHz to accelerate 5G deployments in Italy

Trials will be compliant with 3GPP specifications, the global 5G standard, driving the ecosystem towards rapid commercialization at scale

Dec 14, 2017 | SAN DIEGO

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, ZTE and Wind Tre announce they will conduct interoperability testing and over-the-air field trials based on the 5G New Radio (NR) specifications being developed by 3GPP. The testing is expected to validate 5G services and technologies, enabling timely commercial network launches based on standard compliant 5G NR infrastructure and devices.

The trials will operate at 3.7 GHz, and will showcase advanced 5G technologies to achieve multi-gigabit per second transmission speeds, lower latency and better reliability. These 5G technologies will be necessary to meeting the increasing consumer demand for enhanced mobile broadband experiences, as well as laying the foundation for the needs of services in different fields such as Smart Cities, Connected Cars, e-health, Smart Energy and Industry 4.0. The trials will utilize solutions from ZTE transmitting over the 5G radio interface to device prototypes from Qualcomm Technologies, following Wind Tre guidelines.

"Qualcomm Technologies is committed to meeting the ever-increasing connectivity requirements for emerging mobile broadband experiences and we are already seeing the need to bring 5G NR technologies to devices globally sooner rather than later," said Roberto Di Pietro, Vice President Business Development, Qualcomm Europe, Inc. "We are excited to be part of trials with Wind Tre and ZTE based on the global 3GPP 5G standard, which are critical to ensure timely deployment of 5G networks."

"For Wind Tre the 5G trial is a great opportunity of co-innovation, to test the new technology architecture, the new business models and the customer experience of fifth generation services," said Benoit Hanssen, CTO at Wind Tre. "We believe that, in conducting the trials with Qualcomm and ZTE, we will be able to create an innovative ecosystem, in order to make accessible and sustainable the new solutions."

"ZTE has always maintained an industry-leading position in 5G technology verification and product-based development. We have launched a full range of 5G high-frequency and low-frequency products and comprehensive solutions. In addition, ZTE is verifying a multitude of key technologies, solutions and network models together with industry partners. Through the detailed field tests, we can discover and solve the potential problems prior to large-scale commercial use of 5G, helping us in our aim of become one of the world’s first suppliers of commercial 5G equipment and solutions," said Bai Yanmin, general manager of ZTE's TDD&5G products.