A European Union-backed initiative led to a recent demonstration of 5G radio communications at speeds of up to 2.5 Gbps, a German research institute announced.

Fraunhofer HHI last week highlighted the EU-funded iCIRRUS project, which made a final demonstration, after three years of work, in March at Telekom Slovenia.

The project, which sought to develop solutions for the intelligent cloud-Radio Access Network in the global 5G standard, resulted in fronthaul solutions with data rates of up to 100 Gbps, as well as a cloud solution with ethernet-based fronthaul that can reach 1000 times the area and achieve 10 to 100 times the user data rates of 4G LTE networks.

Fraunhofer HHI’s contribution, a synchronous fronthaul solution for 5G, sent millimeter wave signals at a rate of 60 GHz and was able to transmit data in the flexible 5G cloud-RAN scenario at an error-free rate of 2.5 Gbps, the group said.

“In the iCIRRUS project, we were able to demonstrate for the first time an ethernet-based fronthaul solution for mm-wave signals that achieves the high data rates expected for 5G,” Fraunhofer HHI Project Manager Kai Habel said in a statement.

Officials noted the cloud-RAN approach allows handovers to be put in place more quickly, as well as improves security and protects against interference.