DoCoMo 5G white paper details phantom cell, NOMA and massive MIMO

Japanese telco NTT DoCoMo released a white paper regarding the 5G network it intends to commercially launch during 2020 in time for the opening of the Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo. In the paper, DoCoMo lays out its views on the technical requirements, evolution concept and candidate technologies for 5G radio access.

Technical topics discussed include the phantom cell concept, non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) and massive MIMO. The phantom cell is an "enabler of inter-cell collaboration in a multi-layer architecture, with small cells being overlaid over a macro cell. Specifically, the control plane and user data plane (C/U) split is used to transmit U-plane and C-plane from different cells on different frequency bands," DoCoMo explained.

NOMA is a transmission technology to multiplex signals designated to multiple users, while massive MIMO involves the use of "a large number of antenna elements arranged in horizontal and vertical dimensions of an antenna to improve its performance and provide stable, high-speed data transmission even in higher frequency bands," the company said.

DoCoMo said it is targeting data speeds of more than 10 Gbps and 1,000 times the capacity of today's LTE networks to serve increasing amounts of smartphone data traffic and the expected surge of machine-to-machine (M2M) communications and the Internet of Things (IoT). The operator added that it hopes its white paper will promote 5G global activities and discussions. For more, see this DoCoMo release and this white paper (PDF).