China Mobile plans to start large-scale 5G trials later this year. The company has confirmed it will run field trials in Shanghai, Hangzhou and three other cities from the second quarter of this year, with at least 100 basestations deployed in each, Chinese industry site c114 reports. The operator plans to deploy small-scale “apps demonstration” trials in a dozen other cities, including Beijing and Shenzhen, According to Liu Guangyi, CTO for terminal and wireless technology at China Mobile Research Institution, the trial networks will mostly run in the 3.5GHz band, with some 4.9GHz being deployed.

Guangyi also said that China Mobile will focus on testing massive MIMO outdoor and network slicing. “After the [5G] standard is finished we can upgrade the software and then conduct tests for a pre-commercial system. Then we can offer a pre-commercial customer experience in the second half of next year”, he said.