Ericsson and Deutsche Telekom achieve 40Gbps data transmission in millimeter wave

Ericsson and Deutsche Telekom this week announced they are the first to demonstrate a millimeter wave link with a data transmission rate of 40Gbps. The live trial was completed at the Deutsche Telekom Service Center in Athens over a hop distance of 1.4 kilometers in the millimeter wave (E-band) spectrum. The technical setup included the use of Ericsson’s latest mobile transport technology, including Ericsson’s MINI-LINK 6352 microwave solution and Router 6000.

Millimeter wave (mmWave) is the band of spectrum between 30 gigahertz (GHz) and 300 GHz. Researchers are testing wireless broadband technology to achieve fiber-like performance.

“Microwave continues to be a key technology for mobile transport by supporting the capacity and latency requirements of 4G and future 5G networks. Our joint innovation project shows that higher capacity microwave backhaul will be an important enabler of high-quality mobile broadband services when 5G becomes a commercial reality.”


Per Narvinger, Head of Product Area Networks, Ericsson

Pia Hettinger, Public Relations Officer at Deutsche Telekom, said this is an important milestone in the evolution from today’s 10Gbps reality toward the 100Gbps future, as what was achieved is four times greater compared to current commercial millimeter wave solutions.

The test also focused on the stringent latency requirements in 5G network architecture to support low latency or ultra-low latency use cases. The round-trip latency performance of the link tested was less than 100 microseconds, which DT says it confirms the positive contribution of wireless backhaul technologies to satisfy network-specific latency targets.

“A high-performance transport connection will be key to support high data throughput and enhanced customer experience in next-generation networks. While fiber is an important part of our portfolio, it is not the only option for backhaul. Together with our partners, we have demonstrated fiber-like performance is also possible with wireless backhauling/X-Haul solutions. This offers an important extension of our portfolio of high-capacity, high-performance transport options for the 5G era.”


Alex Jinsung Choi, SVP Strategy & Technology Innovation, Deutsche Telekom.