Ericsson has achieved 5 Gbps speed in the 15 GHz frequency band in live, over-the-air demonstrations of the company's pre-standard 5G network technology. NTT DOCOMO and SK Telecom senior management witnessed Ericsson's demonstration at Ericsson lab in Kista, Sweden.

According to Ericsson, its live demonstration employs a new radio interface concept and advanced Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) technology to achieve this throughput. Ericsson 5G network development activity includes new antenna technologies with wider bandwidths, higher frequencies and shorter transmission time intervals. Radio base stations built with baseband units and radio units are being developed specifically for 5G trials. Small cells in a heterogeneous network environment, new frequency bands (including 15 GHz) and high-speed, high-capacity backhaul transmission are also key 5G focus areas for Ericsson.

The Ericsson Mobility Report (June, 2014) forecasts that 85 percent of North American mobile subscriptions will be LTE by 2019. This high penetration of LTE indicates that North America could be one of the first regions to adopt 5G. At the same time, Japan and South Korea are also likely to benefit from early 5G availability with trials already announced by both NTT DOCOMO and SK Telecom. 5G implementation in commercial mobile networks is expected in 2020.