Ericsson and SoftBank Corp. are planning to extend a cooperative 5G trial to evaluate 28 GHz links — indoor and outdoor, stationary and mobile. Ericsson will provide the 5G test bed, which includes base stations and device prototypes. The trials will evaluate the performance of massive MIMO, massive beamforming, distributed MIMO, multi-user MIMO and beam tracking and how each supports multi-gigabit data rates and ultra-low latency.

The 28 GHz trials follow tests at 4.5 and 15 GHz that began in Tokyo in August 2016, which also used Ericsson's base stations and user equipment.

Hideyuki Tsukuda, senior VP at SoftBank, said, "SoftBank started to verify 4.5 GHz radio back in August 2016 and now 4.5 GHz is becoming the leading candidate band for 5G services in Japan, together with 28 GHz. We are leveraging Ericsson's test bed with 28 GHz radio to validate a lot of advanced features at super low latency and high throughput, which helps position us as a pioneer of 5G."