Samsung Electronics says it achieved the industry’s fastest 5G speeds in a lab demonstration that used carrier aggregation to combine multiple channels of mmWave spectrum into 800 MHz.
The trial used the Samsung 5G mmWave access unit that combines the traditional baseband, radio and antenna. Samsung unveiled its 5G NR access unit for mmWave spectrum at Mobile World Congress Los Angeles in October 2019. The access unit employs MIMO technology with over 1,000 antenna elements in a single unit.
In its recent test, Samsung used two test devices equipped with its latest 5G modem chipset. The devices sent signals to the mmWave access unit and achieved approximately 4.3 Gbps speeds each, reaching an industry peak speed of 8.5 Gbps across both devices.
Earlier this year, Samsung participated in a trial with Verizon, using a commercial network cell site in Texas. In that trial, Verizon aggregated 800 MHz of 28 GHz band spectrum using Samsung’s 5G NR access unit. However, the parties didn’t specify how much traffic the site was handling. And it’s likely it wasn’t handling too much commercial traffic given the dearth of 5G handsets in use by consumers.
Verizon says it has commercially deployed the Samsung access unit.
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Samsung is working in South Korea and the United States on technology for mmWave. And the company says it has also begun supporting the commercial deployment of 5G in Japan.