Softbank and Ericsson this week established a partnership that will see the two companies collaborate on trials of potential 5G technologies.

The Japanese operators will use Ericsson's hardware to conduct field trials of ultra-high bit rate, ultra-low latency network infrastructure in several frequency bands.

Ericsson said its advanced antenna technologies and new baseband and radio units have already achieved connection speeds of more than 5 Gbps in live, over-the-air demonstrations.

Ericson’s advanced antenna technologies, new baseband and radio units have more than 5 Gbps connection speeds over-the-air

"We look forward to working with our partner to show the potential of 5G technologies via this joint trial activity," said Hideyuki Tsukuda, SVP and head of Softbank's mobile network unit, in a statement on Thursday.

"As the industries are undergoing rapid transformation, 5G will be an integral component of this movement toward the networked society. I'm excited about the new technologies that we are exploring in the joint trial collaboration with SoftBank," added Yossi Cohen, president of Ericsson Japan.

The companies did not disclose when they expect to carry out the trials.

Thursday's announcement came less than a week after Softbank announced 5G research partnerships with Huawei and ZTE.

The three companies have agreed to focus on enhancing Massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) and spectral efficiency technologies to improve mobile coverage and capacity.

Total Telecom