- Nokia showed off a pre-6G 7 GHz radio at the Brooklyn 6G Summit
- More demos and tests are aimed at establishing its capabilities, analyst Joe Madden said
- The prototype user equipment was enormous (of course!)
At the Brooklyn 6G summit last week, Nokia demoed a 7 GHz radio that was broadcasting data between Dallas and a prototype user equipment (UE) box in downtown Brooklyn.
Nokia showed off this equipment on a van situated outside the Brooklyn 6G summit. Nokia's Aqil Ahmed Syed told Fierce that the test sent data from a site in Dallas over the 7 GHz antenna atop the truck to a boxy prototype UE in Brooklyn.
Syed said that Nokia had only been allowed 100 megahertz (MHz) to send and receive the data over. He said that actual 6G systems will have a bandwidth of 400 MHz to play with. 4 times that of 5G, Syed noted.
The UE, of course, resembled a couple of large suitcases — more than an iPhone! Syed said that actual 6G devices should start to be commercially available in 2029.
More tests needed
Mobile Experts lead analyst Joe Madden, who saw the equipment at the summit, said he thought, unsurprisingly, that more 6G demonstrations will be needed. "The performance was okay, with data showing that the 7 GHz signal penetrated the glass windows to the hallway outside the auditorium," Madden said. "Spectral efficiency and MIMO performance were shown to be good."
"I can’t make any conclusion about 7 GHz performance based on this test, because it was only penetrating a single glass window, at a short distance, and the UE was not moving. We will need to wait for additional demos to see increased building penetration, longer distance, and mobility testing," the analyst concluded.