MUNICH—China will be taking a look at what 5G broadcasts will look like through a field trial taking place in Beijing and run by the Academy of Broadcasting Science and the China Broadcasting Network Co. Ltd. Assisting with the trial will be Rohde & Schwarz, which will provide transmitters and core network components.

This new trial will be based on the 5G Today project that R&S is also a part of in Germany. Set to go on air in August before the 2019 Beijing International Radio, TV & Film Exhibition, this is a step toward 5G broadcasting that China hopes to have in place for commercial deployment by the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing and then for further national expansion by 2025.

The Beijing Trial network will contain three stations operating in a single-frequency network and a FeMBMS (Further evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service) and High Tower High Power concept. R&S transmitters with 1kW output power will work at a central frequency of 754 MHz with 5 MHz bandwidth (later on 10 MHz). A software defined radio receiver developed by Technische Universitaet Braunschweig, Germany, and a Kathrein signal analyzer are part of the trial package. This end-to-end implementation will help with tests for field strength propagation, network coverage, mobility reception, application possibilities and interworking with LTE unicast network.

According to R&S’ press release, the 5G trial is expected to have significant impact on chipset and handset manufacturers market, and that it can be a “driving force on a commercial end-to-end realization of the future broadcasting technology.”

BIRTV 2019 will take place from Aug. 20-24, where R&S is expected to demonstrate some of the 5G broadcast technology.