Nokia and SFR have announced the successful completion of a 5G call, using the 3GPP-compliant 5G New Radio (NR) system over-the-air on the 3.5GHz frequency band. The test took place on  May 3rd, 2018, at the Nokia 5G Test Network and Competence Center in Paris-Saclay, France.

The 5G call used Nokia 5G NR technology, incorporating the Nokia 5G-ready AirScale radio platform and Cloud RAN technology together with 3GPP-compliant end user test devices. A cloud infrastructure based on the Nokia AirFrame Datacenter solution was built to support Cloud RAN.

The 5G New Radio NR standard, agreed by the 3GPP in December 2017, is designed to support a wide variety of 5G applications and enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) services. Nokia 5G NR systems use smart antennas to deliver multi-gigabit throughput speeds and millisecond low-latency. This will enable operators such as SFR to increase network capacity in spectrum below 6GHz frequency bands to deliver wide-area coverage.

Nokia is a key supplier to SFR, specifically on the radio access network, and this latest milestone is fully in line with SFR's ambition to be at the forefront of innovation for the benefit of its customers.