Early Practical Implementation of 5G and Its Use in Connected Cars

「Going forward, the company aims to open designated base stations in all prefectures by the end of the fiscal year ending March 2031 and begin services by the end of the fiscal year ending March 2032.」

「5G, for which the group began offering commercial services in March 2020, has exceeded a population coverage rate of 95%, and the coverage area continues to expand. Until now, the group has primarily used non-standalone 5G services to deliver ultrahigh-speed, high-capacity communications. It will now progressively advance standalone 5G services to provide ultrahigh-speed, high-capacity communications, ultra-low latency and massive simultaneous connectivity, and aims to offer 5G services that take advantage of these features.」

「5G rollout plan: more than 50,000 base stations (2022) Population coverage rate: more than 90.6% (fiscal 2022) ・Base stations: 50,000 achieved ・Population coverage rate: 90.6% achieved」

「The company launched commercial 5G services in March 2020 and achieved its target population coverage rate of 90% in March 2022.」

「The group launched commercial non-standalone 5G services in March 2020 and, in addition, began offering commercial 5G services using a standalone architecture in Japan for the first time from October 2021.」

「The consortium brings together the company, operating companies in various fields, 5G-related partners and external experts to conduct demonstration testing and development for the commercialisation of 5G solutions addressing issues in each industry. It aims to accelerate the implementation of 5G in society and resolve related issues. As of 5 July 2021, approximately one month after its establishment, the consortium had 45 companies participating in its Working Groups and 544 companies and organisations as 5G Consortium members (Note 10).」

「The group launched commercial 5G services in March 2020 and plans to begin offering services using a standalone architecture during fiscal 2021. As 5G enters its full-scale adoption phase and its use by companies and local governments advances, the group aims to build an ecosystem that serves as a foundation for creating and disseminating 5G solutions addressing diverse needs. To this end, it established the SoftBank 5G Consortium in June 2021.」

「The company launched commercial 5G services in March 2020 and is rolling out VR/AR and cloud gaming services using 5G. In February 2021, it began offering services in selected areas using 4G frequency bands allocated for existing mobile phone services after repurposing them for 5G. In March 2021, it expanded its 5G coverage area to all 47 prefectures.」

「In October 2020, a change to the development plan for existing frequencies was approved, allowing frequency bands allocated for 4G mobile phone services to be repurposed for 5G. Together with newly allocated 5G frequencies, this will further accelerate the expansion of the 5G coverage area.」

「The company launched commercial 5G services in March 2020 and is rolling out VR/AR and cloud gaming services using 5G. It aims to deploy 5G across all 47 prefectures by the end of fiscal 2020 and achieve a population coverage rate of more than 90% by the end of fiscal 2021.」

「In April 2020, the company and KDDI Corporation jointly established 5G JAPAN Corporation, a joint venture, to promote the early development of 5G networks in regional areas. Going forward, the companies will promote infrastructure sharing through the efficient reciprocal use of their base-station assets and accelerate the regional rollout of 5G.」

「The group launched commercial 5G services in March 2020. Going forward, it plans to make maximum use of the strengths developed through 4G and expand its coverage area in cooperation with other companies. It aims to deploy 5G in all 47 prefectures by March 2021 and achieve a population coverage rate of more than 90% by March 2022.」

「In November 2019, as part of joint research with Honda R&D Co., Ltd. on connected-car technology using 5G, the company conducted technical tests of a 5G connected car in a commercial-level environment and confirmed that stable communications could be maintained under various conditions, including radio and use-case testing. It was the first in the world to successfully conduct driving tests of a 5G connected car using commercial-level communications equipment compliant with the 3GPP Release 15 standard and employing 256QAM and 4×4 MIMO.」

「In August 2019, in cooperation with Sharp Corporation, the company successfully conducted an experiment involving multi-angle live streaming in high-definition 8K video over 5G of an international basketball game held at Saitama Super Arena.」

「In June 2019, the company used its portable “Odekake 5G” equipment, which it developed to provide high-quality 5G radio signals in localized areas, for the first time at a construction site. It successfully operated under a 5G environment a construction machinery system being developed by TAISEI CORPORATION that supports remote operation and automated control.」

「In particular, the full-scale launch of services using the next-generation communications standard, the fifth-generation mobile communications system, or 5G, was scheduled for 2020. The company plans to actively roll out a nationwide 5G communications network by combining the new frequency bands allocated in April 2019 with frequency bands it already held, while expanding its facilities and strengthening its operating structure to provide consistently high-quality communications services.」

「As part of its efforts to introduce 5G (the fifth-generation mobile communications system), the company is pursuing research and development, including demonstration testing, with the aim of launching commercial use at an early stage. In November 2018, it built the world’s first (Note 3) testing environment for developing connected cars using 5G and began testing for commercialisation.」