MUNICH -- Telefónica launched 3.5GHz LTE TDD Massive MIMO outfield trial, running 16 terminals simultaneously over 20MHz spectrum on the 3.5GHz band with a peak downlink rate of 650 Mbps on the german O2 sub network in Munich. Throughout the trial, the Telefónica Group verified the performance of TDD Massive MIMO, which is an important milestone of the Munich TechCity project by Telefónica and Huawei.

Massive MIMO is a large-scale, multi-antenna technology. Through the antenna array, it can focus the signal on a more precise set of layers making transmission more efficient and its accuracy beam would extend the coverage further. Massive MIMO is capable of ‘full 3D dimensional beam forming’, allowing the antenna to directly cover the areas where a high capacity for customers is needed. Thereby achieving an extraordinary peak rate and a five-fold spectrum efficiency compared to traditional 4G 2T2R technology. It is very well suited to be used to cover e.g. the dense urban hot area, train stations, squares, stadium, town center, shopping malls and skyscrapers.

By owning 84MHz spectrum resource on 3.5GHz frequency, and having benefited from the previous improvement on both capacity and coverage that Massive MIMO can achieve, Telefónica will be able to provide customers with new applications such as WTTx (wireless home broadband), 4K video, etc. So 3.5 GHz Massive MIMO may become an interesting component of Telefónica’s network in the 5G future.

In addition to Massive MIMO, Telefónica and Huawei also make great progress in other TechCity projects in Munich, e. g. maximizing spectrum utilization, indoor digitalization and NB-IoT.

Telefónica is dedicated to provide a better service experience to the customers and pave the way to 5G with more cutting-edge technologies. It will continuously cooperate with Huawei to research and practice more joint innovation.

Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.