Ericsson on Wednesday announced plans to launch what it called the world’s first commercial 5G radio for massive and multi-user MIMO next year.
Dubbed the AIR 6468, the new radio offers a mix of advanced antennas and steerable ports to enable beamforming, Massive MIMO and multi-user MIMO. According to the company, the AIR 6468 will combine with Ericsson’s previously announced 5G Plug-Ins and current Radio System Baseband 5216 to offer operators all components of a 5G access network.
Initial deployments of the AIR 6468 are slated for 2017, Ericsson said.
“We are introducing the new hardware that 5G Plug-Ins, announced in June, will run on, so that the first operators can start to deploy 5G infrastructure,” Ericsson head of Business unit Network Products Arun Bansal said. “We are also launching innovations that improve both the performance and efficiency of today’s networks using concepts that will evolve into 5G.”
The additional launches mentioned by Bansal include three new radios that support gigabit speeds for LTE, including Radio 4407 and Radio 4412 with 4×4 MIMO and Radio 8808 with advanced TDD beamforming; as well as Radio 2205, which Ericsson said is a micro solution that functions on unlicensed spectrum.
The company is also rolling out two new baseband units to support industry densification efforts, including the micro Baseband 6502 and macro Baseband 6303; an Uplink Spectrum Analyzer software solution; Baseband P614 with Passive Inter Modulation mitigation for new band activation in difficult areas; Radio 2242 for instant power sharing between carriers, standards and bands; and Baseband C608 for switching in Elastic RAN deployments.
Filed Under: Wireless • 5G and more, Infrastructure