Three leading companies in the mobile industry have announced a successful test demonstrating 5G interoperability based on the 3GPP Release-15 global standard.
The laboratory tests used data connections in both the 3.5 GHz and 28 GHz bands. Infrastructure for the tests included pre-commercial 5G NR base stations supplied by Samsung, while 5G NR user equipment prototypes were provided by Qualcomm.
“As the industry moves toward commercial launches of 5G NR products and networks, close collaboration among global mobile leaders on testing and trials is essential to validate the technologies and refine our capabilities,” said Cristiano Amon, president of Qualcomm Incorporated. “We are proud of this achievement with Samsung and KT and look forward to continued collaboration on the path to making 5G a commercial reality.”
The live demonstration took place at Samsung’s laboratory in Suwon, South Korea. During the trials, engineers achieved multi-gigabit downlink speeds while measuring latency as low as one millisecond, illustrating both high throughput and low-latency potential in real-world scenarios.
Paul Kyungwhoon Cheun, executive vice president and head of R&D for Samsung’s networks business, emphasized the importance of industry cooperation: “Collaboration led by major industry players like KT and Qualcomm Technologies is crucial for advancing 5G and driving practical implementations. As an active contributor to 5G NR development, Samsung is excited that our joint efforts have helped open pathways for new business models and use cases yet to be experienced.”
Throughout the demonstration, the partners verified full compliance with the 3GPP Release-15 5G NR specifications. The implementation showcased key technical elements including scalable OFDM numerology tailored for 5G NR, advanced channel coding and modulation schemes, a low-latency slot structure, and support for both control and data channels in Massive MIMO and millimeter-wave mobile deployments.
The interoperability test covered critical features that are expected to underpin commercial 5G networks and services. Scalable numerology enables flexible subcarrier spacing and symbol durations suited to diverse spectrum bands and deployments. Advanced channel coding and modulation improve spectral efficiency and reliability, while the low-latency slot structure supports time-sensitive applications. Massive MIMO and mmWave support demonstrated in the demo underline how beamforming and high-frequency spectrum can boost capacity and throughput in dense and high-demand environments.
These joint tests are intended to accelerate industry readiness by validating end-to-end behaviors across equipment from different vendors and ensuring that devices and networks can interoperate according to global standards. Such verification reduces technical risk for operators and vendors planning commercial rollouts and helps developers understand performance trade-offs for targeted use cases such as enhanced mobile broadband, fixed wireless access, and ultra-reliable low-latency communications.
The partners planned to showcase the 5G NR interoperability solution at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona from February 26 through March 1. Attendees were able to see demonstrations at participating company booths, where the live test results and technical implementations were presented to industry professionals, operators, and media.
By executing standardized interoperability tests in licensed mid-band and millimeter-wave spectrum, the companies demonstrated how 5G NR can deliver both very high speeds and very low latency when equipment adheres to Release-15 specifications. These results support continued work toward commercial network deployment and ecosystem maturity, including device certification, network optimization, and development of services that exploit 5G performance.
The successful test represents a milestone in collaborative testing between chipset makers, equipment vendors, and operators, showing practical progress on key technical fronts and reinforcing confidence that 5G standards can be implemented interoperably. Continued joint testing and demonstrations will remain important as the industry moves from lab validation to large-scale commercial networks and a broader range of consumer and enterprise services.
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