Nokia and Sprint will show what they call the first live demonstration in the US of a 5G New Radio (NR) connection over a dual mode-capable Massive MIMO radio, bringing this revolutionary technology one step closer to reality. Shown at Sprint’s booth during Mobile World Congress Americas, the companies will use Sprint’s 2.5 GHz spectrum, Nokia’s commercial AirScale Base Station and Massive MIMO Active Antenna, and a Viavi TM500 5G test device emulator. The demonstration highlights Sprint’s approach using its 2.5 GHz spectrum and game-changing Massive MIMO technology to deploy mobile 5G in the first half of 2019.

This first in the US live 5G NR system connection using a Massive MIMO Active Antenna can support up to 120 MHz of spectrum in 2.5 GHz. The Nokia AirScale Massive MIMO Active Antenna is expected to deliver up to 3 Gbps peak downlink throughput for a single sector over 5G and LTE simultaneously using Sprint’s spectrum. This enables Sprint to offer both 4G/LTE and 5G on the same radio to continue meeting its customers’ demand for unlimited data and high-bandwidth applications.

Massive MIMO, invented by Nokia Bell Labs, will be on display with the live 5G NR connection demonstration. Nokia and Sprint will also showcase other 5G demonstrations at Sprint’s booth, including low latency use cases for public safety and car platooning, and an Augmented Reality demo for Enterprise.

Nokia will also present a variety of innovative 5G demonstrations at the Nokia booth. Mobile World Congress Americas will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center, on 12-14 September.