Ericsson and Verizon successfully complete the world’s first outdoor 6G field call

Verizon and Ericsson have just done a world first, as they’ve successfully completed the world’s first outdoor 6G field call.

That means they managed to establish an end-to-end connection using pre-standard 6G hardware and software. The term ‘field call’ doesn’t necessarily mean a phone call – rather just that a data connection was made, and that it was in the ‘field’ rather than a controlled laboratory setting.

The field call was made at a Verizon commercial network site in Concord, California, using Ericsson’s 6G proof-of-concept kit, and the connection was made between a base station and the interior of a small house on wheels, designed for these sorts of tests. The house has varied wall and window materials, to test the signal’s ability to pass through differing obstructions.

A major milestone

400MHz of spectrum in the 7GHz band was used for this test, and for such early days in 6G development it sounds like quite a demanding trial, testing – as Ericsson explains – “coverage, throughput, latency, stability and feature behaviour under realistic conditions, including line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight paths, foliage, obstacles and outside-in penetration through different glass and building materials.”

So while this successful test in no way means that 6G is ready for launch, it’s an important milestone, and the results of this test can be used to help research, develop, and further test 6G technologies.

It’s a promising start then – showing by the sounds of things the viability of Ericsson’s current 6G proof-of-concept kit. And while 6G is not predicted to get a commercial launch before 2030, this suggests we’re hopefully on track at least for that.