China Mobile has brought Huawei’s 5G distributed Massive MIMO solution to Chengdu Tianfu International Airport to build the first Gigabit 5G airport in China. The field tests showed that the user-perceived rate across the check-in areas exceeded 1 Gbps, with the single-user rate increasing by 26% on average over common 5G networks up to a peak of 1.25 Gbps.
Significant improvement was also displayed in both the perceived rate and overall network capacity in multi-user scenarios. This high level of network performance will provide a solid foundation for both common passenger services and 5G smart travel applications.
The upgrade to wall-to-wall Gigabit will help carriers fulfil the demand for premium mobile access and smart travel experience.
Chengdu Tianfu International Airport is the second international air hub in Southwest China’s Sichuan Province. Being an airport of the highest 4F grade along the Silk Road Economic Belt, it contains two terminals covering a total floor area of 719,600 m2Â and is able to support 40 million passenger trips, 700,000 tons of cargo and mail, and 320,000 aircraft movements annually.
Air travellers spend a considerable amount of time in airports in watching videos, chatting with friends, and reading news on mobile devices, making wall-to-wall high-speed mobile access a core requirement. Major airlines are also launching 5G-based smart travel services, such as VIP recognition, luggage tracking, and AR map navigation, to improve travel experience.
The network achieves high-speed experience for its users no matter the service scenarios by using Huawei’s digital indoor small cells combined with 5G distributed Massive MIMO software functions.
Distributed Massive MIMO is vital to support wall-to-wall 5G Gigabit speed. Incorporating the leading technologies of outdoor 5G Massive MIMO into indoor networks, distributed Massive MIMO provides indoor networks with joint beamforming and multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) to enhance both 5G network capacity and user experience.
It improves signal quality by eliminating interference between channels working on the same frequency in multi-cell networks to provide a high-speed and high-quality experience in target 5G coverage areas.
Chengdu Tianfu International Airport is a new landmark in Sichuan, and wall-to-wall 5G Gigabit networks will enable it to improve mobile services and build high-quality network infrastructure required to improve travel experience and empower airports and airlines to implement smart travel applications.
