LIVE FROM 5G WORLD, LONDON: Takehiro Nakamura, the VP & MD of NTT Docomo’s 5G Lab, warned that a decision must be made this year on what spectrum is suitable for 5G.

Nakamura said suitable radio frequencies need to be identified in 2016 so that services can be launched by 2020. Docomo, in particular, is eager for a decision because it wants to showcase its 5G capability at the 2020 Olympic games in Tokyo.

But it is not straightforward to find spectrum that is available across all regions, he acknowledged. Judging from Nakamura’s slides, sub 6GHz offers significant availability of spectrum, but less so above 6GHz.

He identified a number of promising bands, including 28GHz and 3.4GHz to 3.8GHz.

Nakamura went on to talk through a number of trials Docomo is conducting with network vendors, including one with Samsung at 28GHz that is designed to show off the capabilities of beam tracking, as well as another with Nokia at 73GHz that demonstrates 8K video transmission over 5G and a third with Ericsson at 15GHz that was focused on MIMO.