5G Solutions for Mobile Network Operators

5G Solutions for Mobile Network Operators

5G deployments have begun and rollout announcements from mobile network operators are multiplying. Mobile network operators around the world are investing in 5G and launching networks to capture new business models. 5G requires new technologies and performance improvements that challenge the way engineers test the network. Keysight delivers deep expertise in radio frequency (RF) design and Internet Protocol (IP) networking through an industry-leading integrated portfolio. Keysight can help mobile network operators accelerate the delivery of secure, reliable, and cost-effective 5G networks and innovative services.

Overview: End-to-End 5G Solutions to Connect and Accelerate the Workflow

5G offers significant revenue potential for mobile network operators. Standards are evolving, giving rise to new use cases. The 5G New Radio (5G NR) non-standalone (NSA) standard passed in December 2017, followed by the standalone version (SA) in mid-2018. 5G NR NSA and SA continue to progress in parallel. 5G NR extensions for vehicle-to-everything communication (V2X), ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC), and other applications are on the horizon. Mobile network operators face new application demands and need to find ways to support the massive increase in future subscribers. Meeting these requirements means that networks need to change to accommodate expanded frequencies in the millimeter-wave (mmWave) spectrum, wider channel bandwidths, denser waveforms, and user behaviors. Keysight solutions accurately emulate 5G devices, base stations, and massive subscriber behavior scenarios.

Quality Assurance Solutions to Accelerate Validation

Scenario

The complexity of 5G, increasing user demands, and the hypercompetitive nature of the commercial wireless communications industry, make it critical for mobile network operators to validate the performance of networks and user equipment (UE). With Keysight’s solutions, mobile network operators can evaluate device protocol compliance and perform realistic large-scale UE simulation thoroughly and time-efficiently.

5G channel sounding

Keysight’s 5G Channel Sounding Reference Solution consists of multiple hardware and software elements to provide wideband signal generation. This solution helps research engineers to advance 5G channel modeling at mmWave frequencies. The test platform addresses the challenges posed by mmWave frequencies and wide analysis bandwidths for 5G channel capture and characterization. Researchers can determine the properties of a radio channel by understanding the impact of path loss, Doppler effect, and other issues on signal transmission. The solution easily scales up by adding Keysight up/down converters and digitizers.

Solution highlights

• Comprehensive measurements of frequency response
  • Amplitude and unwrapped phase and group delay
  • Absolute path loss and power delay profile (PDP)
  • Angle of arrival (AoA)
  • Angle of departure (AoD)
  • Angular spread (AS)
• Wideband transmitter and receiver test calibration including vector pre-corrections,

IQ frequency response, IQ imbalance, and channel-to-channel skew for complete confidence in your measurements and decisions

• Precise transmit/receive (Tx/Rx) timing and synchronization for high measurement accuracy when capturing and characterizing potential channels
• Configuration and test tools for input/output (I/O) control, system-wide calibration, data storage, and streaming for the efficient characterization of complex 5G channels
• Three standard configurations are available: 40 GHz and four channels, 40 GHz and eight channels, or 44 GHz and four channels. Custom solutions are available for higher frequencies, wider analysis bandwidths, and channel counts (up to 104 channels) to address a wide range of applications