Huawei has announced that it has completed a 5G NSA (Non-Stand Alone) functional test based on 3GPP. The NSA test took place in the third phase of China's 5G tests in Beijing’s Huairou District. The test was organized by the IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group, which aims to meet the ITU’s International Mobile Telecommunication system target date of 2020, according Telecompaper. Huawei reports that its test marks the first 5G NSA functional test based on the official protocol version of 5G NR (New Radio), following the 3GPP announcement of completion of the 5G NR standard in December 2017.
The content of the test includes the basic functions of the physical layer defined by the 3GPP standard, physical channels, link adaptation and scheduling, multi-antenna technology, EN-DC (LTE-NR Dual-Connectivity), and CU-DU(Central Unit - Distributed Unit) separation architecture.
During the C-Band test, Huawei adopted 5G products launched at Mobile World Congress 2018. The Option 3x for NSA networking service with limited impact on the inventory network was selected. 4G is used as the anchor point of the control plane. LTE and 5G NR dual connectivity are used to maintain service continuity in the initial stage of 5G deployment. The fast deployment of LTE-NR NSA is necessary in the initial stage of 5G era, which will be followed by the full-spectrum NR SA network.
