Japanese carrier NTT DOCOMO plans to conduct experimental trials of emerging 5G mobile communications technologies with six mobile technology vendors: Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Fujitsu, NEC, Nokia and Samsung.

The parallel collaborations between DOCOMO and each of the six vendors will involve experimental trials to confirm the potential of 5G mobile technologies to exploit frequency bands above 6GHz and realize very high system capacity per unit area, and new radio technologies to support diverse types of applications including machine-to-machine (M2M) services. DOCOMO also expects to collaborate with other companies in its effort to test a wide range of 5G mobile technologies.

5G is a new-generation cellular system targeted at commercial deployment in 2020. The new system is expected to enable ultra-high-speed data transmissions at more than 10Gbps, 1,000-fold the capacity of existing LTE networks, as well as connectivity for massive numbers of devices to support M2M services.

DOCOMO will begin indoor trials at the DOCOMO R&D Center in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture this year, to be followed by outdoor field trials planned for next year. Key findings and achievements will be shared with research institutes and at international conferences to contribute to 5G standardization, which is expected to start from 2016. Key findings also will be utilized for research aimed at incubating future advanced technologies.