Ericsson and Qualcomm demonstrated multi-vendor interoperability using the 5G non-standalone New Radio (NR) standard that was completed yesterday by the 3GPP. The companies used Ericsson 5G NR pre-commercial base stations and Qualcomm 5G NR UE prototype devices to complete the test that was held in Ericsson's lab in Kista, Sweden, and Qualcomm's research lab in New Jersey.

AT&T, NTT Docomo, Orange, SK Telecom, Sprint, Telstra, T-Mobile U.S., Verizon, and Vodafone also participated in the interoperability test.

The tests used both 3.5 GHz and 28 GHz spectrum bands and included sub-6 GHz and millimeter wave (mmWave) end-to-end 5G NR systems.

The test complies with the 3GPP 5G NR specifications for waveform, dynamic slot-based frame structure, massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), mobile mmWave, and channel codecs.

Early last month Qualcomm worked with China Mobile and ZTE to achieve end-to-end connection and prove that multi-vendor interoperability was possible.

At that time, Matt Branda, director of technical marketing at Qualcomm Technologies, told SDxCentral that the interoperability trial “shows that the technologies implemented comply with Layer 1 specs in the 3GPP."

The 3GPP 5G NR architecture leverages the LTE and the NR air interfaces as well as the existing LTE core network. This configuration will likely be used for early 2019 deployments.