Phazr, a startup focusing on millimeter wave technology for 5G applications, appears to be gaining some attention as two major U.S. carriers move forward with tests of the company’s gear.
Earlier this month, Tier-1 carrier Verizon asked the FCC for permission to test Phazr’s technology in Euless, Texas. The carrier said the purpose of the tests was to “understand the characteristics of mmWave operating bands, specifically 28 GHz and 39 GHz, channel bandwidths, and U/L ratios for residential/commercial deployments.”
Verizon said it would be testing three Phazr units in a fixed station setup at 28 GHz, 39 GHz, and 3.5 GHz. This is consistent with Phazr’s Quadplex approach, which uses millimeter wave spectrum between 24 GHz and 40 GHz for the downlink and sub-6 GHz spectrum between 3.5 GHz and 5 GHz for the uplink.
And over the weekend, Phazr submitted an application to demonstrate its 5G millimeter wave equipment at C Spire headquarters in Ridgeland, Miss., next week. C Spire is the sixth largest wireless carrier in the United States.
According to the FCC application, Phazr’s demos in Mississippi will utilize its Radio Backbone (RABACK) nodes and Gazer fixed wireless 5G router.
“We will test speeds as we transmit HD video content from our fiber-based commercial television service,” C Spire spokesman Dave Miller said in a statement. “This is part of our ongoing efforts to bring the benefits of next-generation 5G and fixed wireless technology to consumers and businesses in our region – all with the goal of helping solve a huge economic problem – how to efficiently and cost-effectively deploy fiber-based services in rural, underserved areas, which comprise the majority of our service area.”
As a 5G test partner to Verizon and C Spire, Phazr joins the ranks of Nokia, Ericsson, and Samsung, which have been testing 5G technologies with the carriers for some time now.
Last summer, C Spire teamed up with Nokia to test fixed wireless technology to deliver C Spire Fiber consumer TV content. That test achieved speeds of 2.2 Gbps and latency of under 1.4 milliseconds utilizing ultra-high frequency spectrum.
And of course, Verizon is hard at work on a series of fixed wireless 5G trials in 11 markets across the country with a number of technical partners. The latest news from those tests can be found here.
Like its counterparts, Phazr offers a number of different 5G technologies for millimeter wave spectrum, including the aforementioned Quadplex approach and RABACK and Gazer products, as well as hyperdense beamforming and edge computing, control and analytics (ECCAN).
