Nokia and Vodafone Italy, as part of a recently awarded Italian Ministry of Economic Development (MISE) 5G bid, have started a trial in Milan delivering innovative and smart 5G services for people in the northern Italian city, a hub for industries such as banking and fashion as well as a popular tourist destination. The first 5G site installations were done in December and have continued with a demonstration of high-definition video over 5G in one of the first field applications in Europe.
As the technology partner of Vodafone Italy’s 5G Trial in Milan, Nokia will provide 5G network and application solutions to support the creation of a city-wide 5G test network. Nokia has started 5G network deployment and field testing activities. The first 5G site installations were completed in December and a demonstration of high-definition video over pre-standard standalone 5G was successfully performed on a live 5G site in one of the main central locations of Milan.
This first test, performed with an experimental device provided by PRISMA Telecom Testing connected to the Nokia massive MIMO 5G solution, demonstrated how the very low latency of 5G can enhance the customer experience of video applications. As part of the 5G Trial in Milan, Vodafone and Nokia will also develop specific advanced use cases across various industries.
In the trial, Nokia will employ the Nokia 5G AirScale massive MIMO antenna, which supports both 4G and 5G, AirScale baseband upgraded to support 5G and Cloud Packet Core. Nokia will also employ its Global Services expertise including network deployment, integration and network performance optimisation throughout the trial.
