InterDigital, Inc. (NASDAQ:IDCC), a mobile technology research and development company, today announced the successful trial and evaluation of the company’s millimeter wave (mmW) EdgeLink™ 60GHz solution and Fast-Forward 70GHz solution that meets new 5G transport requirements as defined by the various 5G standardization groups in 3GPP, ETSI, IEEE, and eCPRI. The solution proved the feasibility of 5G fronthaul upper-layer and lower-layer transport over wireless.

The successful trial was a key part of a larger two-month trial integrating technology innovations from six partners in the H2020 5G-Crosshaul consortium, InterDigital, Ericsson, Nokia, UC3M, NEC and CND. The trial started in November 2017 and was conducted in Madrid (Spain) at 5TONIC, an open research and innovation lab focusing on 5G technologies. The 5G-Crosshaul consortium, over the three years 2015-2017, has developed a novel 5G integrated fronthaul/backhaul transport solution, named 5G-Crosshaul, that enables flexible transport reconfiguration via Software Defined Networking (SDN) in a multi-tenant, multi-domain environment, while meeting 5G’s stringent service requirements.

InterDigital’s EdgeLink 60GHz solution and Fast-Forward 70GHz solution served as the mmW wireless Crosshaul transport solution for the 5G fronthaul upper layer and lower layer split options, as well as for backhaul for a small cell.  InterDigital’s Fast-Forward solution proved that it can meet the stringent latency requirements of under 250 usec for the MAC-PHY lower layer split. In addition, backhaul and PDCP/RLC upper layer fronthaul were successfully transported simultaneously over a single high-capacity mmW EdgeLink connection.

“We are pleased with the successful conclusion of this 2 month trial marking the end of 3 years of close collaboration among 20 partners in the 5G-Crosshaul consortium. This is a crucial step towards further trials scheduled in 2018 and 2019, including 5G-Crosshaul alongside 5G New Radio and 5G Core Network, paving the way for the commercial deployment of 5G networks,” said Alan Carlton, Vice President, InterDigital Europe.

5G-Crosshaul is an international project with 20 members aimed at developing integrated fronthaul and backhaul system solutions to support flexibility and unified management for 5G network architectures. To learn more about the project, visit http://5g-crosshaul.eu/.