Deutsche Telekom is aiming to showcase the future of communication by installing high-speed 5G antennas in the real world setting of Berlin, which provide extremely high throughput and very short network reaction times.

Claudia Nemat, Member of the Management Board responsible for Technology & Innovation at Deutsche Telekom, said: “We are demonstrating 5G live here, in the middle of Berlin, rather than in a lab. This is a very decisive developmental step on the way to the global launch of 5G, which is planned for 2020. If everything is connected to everything else, customers need a high-performance, reliable and secure network. Industry in particular will benefit from 5G as a powerful enabler for a wide range of applications. We are ready for 5G.”

The German telecom giant demonstrated the network's high performance by presenting some early application ideas that are enhanced by 5G, with the AR and VR applications benefiting from 5G’s super high data rates and real-time responses.

5G New Radio is the new 5G air interface that will work in combination with the evolution of 4G/LTE technology, which means that this will also play a decisive role in future communications. A key technology in 5G NR to increase capacity and data rates is the use of advanced antenna techniques is, Massive MIMO (multiple input/multiple output), which increases the number of antenna elements deployed at both the base station and in the subscriber device that can increase capacity through a much more efficient use of the frequency spectrum.

As this publication reported earlier this week, researchers from the ElectroScience Laboratory (ESL) at Ohio State University are proposing a floating antenna design that will help ease the overcrowding in the electromagnetic frequency spectrum and boost wireless signals. The design includes suspended high-gain millimetre-wave antenna arrays constructed through a combination of 3D printing and MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems).