In a 4G Field Experiment

Feb 10, 2007 08:06 GMT  ·  By

Japan's leading mobile operator, NTT DoCoMo came close to hitting another data transmission milestone while researching the next-generation cellular phone systems during an experiment conducted last year, on December the 25th in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.

The company managed to transmit data at almost 5GBps to a receiver that was moving at 10km per hour, according to Yoshiki Kakuda, a spokesman for the Tokyo Company.

He also said that the company's public relations department didn't know the exact speed that was achieved, but that it was quite close to 5GBps. NTT DoCoMO has been working on the 4G technology for almost 10 years but they've still got a long way to go before it is launched.

The company is currently planning to launch 4G in Japan by 2010 but also indicated that it first plans to speed-up its WCDMA 3G network before switching to a new technology.

Approximately a year ago, NTT DoCoMo managed to transmit data at 2.5GBps, and this time they managed to double that by increasing the number of MIMO transmitting and receiving antennas from six to twelve and using better signal processing in the receiver.

As compared to the test in December 2005, the frequency spectrum efficiency was also doubled from 25bps/Hz to 50bps/Hz.The mobile operator also plans to launch a 'Super 3G' service by 2010 that will offer data transmission at approximately 100Mbps. NTT DoCoMO will present all the details on this recent experiment next week at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona.

The company has also announced that it is looking forward to contributing to the global standardization of 4G through its ongoing research and development.