Ericsson Japan K.K. (Ericsson) and SoftBank Corp. (SoftBank) have successfully conducted a joint field trial of advanced communication services utilizing 5G Standalone (SA) and millimeter wave (mmWave) at the FIA F1 World Championship Series Aramco Japanese Grand Prix 2026 (F1 Japan Grand Prix) held at Suzuka Circuit (Suzuka City, Mie Prefecture, Japan) from March 27 to 29. This achievement marks the highest number of network slices used simultaneously during an event in Japan.*1
The trial was conducted as part of Ericsson and SoftBank’s joint activities as event supporters of the F1 Japan Grand Prix. In this trial, the two companies built five independent network slices, including mmWave communication, on SoftBank's commercial network and provided them simultaneously to users at the venue. This approach allowed them to offer connectivity optimized for specific use cases while significantly improving the communication quality for general attendees through increased and optimized network capacity.
Background and Overview of This Demo
At large-scale event venues, a wide variety of communication demands occur simultaneously, including attendees posting to social media, viewing and uploading videos, transmitting broadcast video for event operations, and processing cashless payments. In this trial, the companies verified the effectiveness of "network control" to optimize communication quality for each specific use case on SoftBank's commercial network within the F1 Japan Grand Prix venue.