This year’s Super Bowl wasn’t just a showcase for the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers—or halftime performers Shakira and Jennifer Lopez. It was also an opportunity for the four national wireless carriers to highlight their 5G network capabilities, and a large-scale test of their LTE networks’ performance under pressure.
Global Wireless Solutions had its network testing specialists on-hand at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida, using Samsung Galaxy S10 5G devices to test the 5G networks of AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon. GSW conducted tests at the GameDay Fan plaza where pre-game festivities were held, as well as inside the stadium in a variety of locations in the concourses and seating areas.
“GWS test results show that although mobile operators came prepared to show off their 5G networks, not all were successful in providing the hyped throughputs that have been boasted,” the benchmarking company concluded.
AT&T had the highest average 5G download speed over the testing period, at 337 Mbps, while Verizon provided the maximum observed 5G throughput, at 924 Mbps. Comparatively, Verizon’s average 5G download speed was 200 Mbps and the maximum 5G throughput that GWS saw on AT&T’s 5G network was 878 Mbps. T-Mobile US had an average 5G download speed of just 31 Mbps, with a maximum throughput of 175 Mbps.
Meanwhile, Sprint’s 5G network was “tested for but not found during any tests,” GWS found. Sprint’s 4G network averaged 29 Mbps in the downlink.
GWS said that it observed 5G millimeter-wave beamforming used by AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile US, with an average of 8-9 beams per cell, and that the average 5G bandwidth on all three of those networks was 100 megahertz.
Read more of the details from GWS’ test results here. You can also compare them to crowd-sourced Ookla Speedtest data from the big game, which found an average mean download speed for Verizon 5G of nearly 650 Mbps and insufficient speedtest data to draw conclusions about AT&T’s 5G network—but found average speeds for Sprint 5G of about 225 Mbps.
In other test news:
–Keysight Technologies is working with Samsung to validate the use of Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) in Samsung’s solutions. Samsung is using Keysight’s 5G network emulation offerings to push forward development of its radio frequency solution, Exynos RF 5510, and its newest 5G modem, the Exynos Modem 5123, which supports the use of DSS.
In related company news, Keysight also joined the Orbital Security Alliance as a full member; OSA focuses on cybersecurity standards for the space industry.
-Electronic instruments company Ametek this week announced the acquisition of IntelliPower, which is a California-based specialist in high-reliability, ruggedized uninterruptible power systems for mission-critical industrial and defense applications. The company was acquired for about $115 million and has annual sales of about $40 million; it will become part of Ametek’s Electronic Instruments Group.
–Anritsu said that test lab network Eurofins E&E North America will be using Anritsu’s test solutions for testing 5G protocols and covering CTIA 802.11ac test requirements at Eurofins’ test facility in Santa Clara, California.
-Japanese test and measurement giant Yokogawa’s U.S. subsidiary has opened four new technology service centers in the United States: in Salt Lake City, Utah; The Woodlands, Texas; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The four new tech centers expand the company’s presence in the U.S. and “reflect the company’s commitment to meeting growing regional demand for its state-of-the art measurement, control and information products and services,” Yokogawa said.
In addition, the company said this week that The Woodlands site will house its Open Process Automation (OPA) Test Bed Collaboration Center, which is a collaboration with ExxonMobile and focuses on evaluating “candidate components and standards which will provide the basis for moving OPA technology into initial industrial field trials.”
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