Barcelona, Spain – At Mobile World Congress, Nokia and Sprint are demonstrating the benefits of massive MIMO, showcasing how this technology can boost cell capacity by eight times compared to 4G LTE. The joint demonstration, showcased at Nokia’s booth, makes Sprint the first U.S. operator to demonstrate massive MIMO for TDD-LTE spectrum with 64T64R, for both the downlink and uplink on an existing LTE frequency. Massive MIMO, a key element of 5G, can enable LTE network performance well beyond 1Gbps.



Nokia’s newly launched AirScale massive MIMO Adaptive Antenna is part of the company’s 4.9G technology, which provides significant increases in capacity, lower latency and several Gigabits of speed-per-second on the path to 5G. The AirScale massive MIMO Adaptive Antenna is a milestone, driving capacity increases for megacity deployments and service continuity with 5G. The Mobile World Congress demonstration uses 3D Beamforming software to deliver throughput gains of up to eightfold uplink and fivefold downlink. Eight commercially available devices operating on Sprint’s 2.5 GHz TDD-LTE band 41 spectrum will be used.



Massive MIMO takes MIMO technology and scales it up, using 64T64R as compared to 2T2R/4T4R/8T8R in a typical 4G LTE network, but in a relatively compact commercial form. These antennas, attached to a base station, focus the transmission and reception of signal energy into small regions of space. This provides new levels of spectral efficiency and throughput, and allows data consumption from more users in a dense area without requiring more radio spectrum or causing interference. As such, massive MIMO is one of the key elements of 5G that delivers the needed high capacity, especially in the most densely populated locations such as city centers and high-rise buildings.



Günther Ottendorfer, chief operating officer of Technology at Sprint, said: “Massive MIMO is a critical part of our strategy to increase the capacity of our LTE Plus network today, and in the future, it will be a key element of our 5G network. Working with Nokia to deliver massive MIMO is a competitive advantage for Sprint because it is more easily deployed on 2.5 GHz spectrum due to the smaller form factor of the radios, and it’s an important innovation that will take advantage of our deep spectrum holdings.”



Ricky Corker, head of North America at Nokia, said: “Nokia’s massive MIMO technology is another proof point of our innovative work with Sprint in helping it define a long-term solution to provide service continuity for 5G. The significant cell capacity massive MIMO offers is why the technology will play a central role in 5G. Sprint can keep delivering the capacity its customers need, both now and in the future.”



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Did you know



In September 2016, Nokia announced a path to 5G that allows operators to take advantage of major increases in speed and capacity where and when they need it using 4.5G, 4.5G Pro and 4.9G technologies.



Today’s demonstration builds on the Sprint and Nokia 5G demonstration conducted in June 2016 in Santa Clara, California – the first public 5G demonstration in the U.S.

About Sprint:

Sprint (NYSE: S) is a communications services company that creates more and better ways to connect its customers to the things they care about most. Sprint served 59.5 million connections as of Dec. 31, 2016 and is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying innovative technologies, including the first wireless 4G service from a national carrier in the United States; leading no-contract brands including Virgin Mobile USA, Boost Mobile, and Assurance Wireless; instant national and international push-to-talk capabilities; and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone. Sprint has been named to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) North America for the past five years. You can learn more and visit Sprint at www.sprint.com or www.facebook.com/sprint and www.twitter.com/sprint.

About Nokia

Nokia is a global leader innovating the technologies at the heart of our connected world. Powered by the research and innovation of Nokia Bell Labs, we serve communications service providers, governments, large enterprises and consumers, with the industry’s most complete, end-to-end portfolio of products, services and licensing.



From the enabling infrastructure for 5G and the Internet of Things, to emerging applications in virtual reality and digital health, we are shaping the future of technology to transform the human experience. www.nokia.com

