Nokia announced operator partner SoftBank completed tests using the vendor’s latest 5G equipment, which the Finnish company stated demonstrated non-standalone (NSA) technology can be used commercially in vehicles.

In a statement, Nokia said the pair completed the world’s first deployment of its commercial 3GPP Release 15-compliant 256QAM high-order modulation and 4×4 MIMO radio equipment.

The test was conducted at a Honda R&D site in Hokkaido, Japan, where SoftBank installed NSA 5G networks and tested four use cases: transmission of location information of surrounding vehicles at junctions with poor visibility; identification and notification processes for objects falling onto roads; transmission and secondary use of 4K video; and images taken from in-vehicle cameras.

Nokia stated 5G will be key to ensuring inter-vehicle communication, citing the high-bandwidth and low-latency of the next-generation networks. It cited research from Allied Market Research predicting the connected car sector will be worth $225.16 billion by 2025.

John Harrington, head of Nokia Japan said: “These trials demonstrate that 5G technology can be successfully, safely and efficiently utilised in the connected car market.”

In 2019, SoftBank chose Nokia and Ericsson to supply 5G radio equipment, snubbing Huawei despite conducting tests with the Chinese vendor.