SoftBank, Ericsson, Qualcomm complete 5G advanced trial in Tokyo

SoftBank, Ericsson Japan, and Qualcomm Technologies have completed a field trial in Tokyo to test low-latency 5G and 5G advanced features, including low latency, low loss, and scalable throughput (L4S), on SoftBank’s 5G standalone commercial network.

The companies trialed technologies such as L4S, configured uplink grant, and rate-controlled scheduling, which are standardized by 3GPP to stream XR content.

The trial showed about a 90% drop in wireless link latency compared to networks not using these 5G features, the companies said.

SoftBank said the findings will inform its ongoing efforts to deploy 5G and 5G advanced capabilities for applications that require low-latency communications.

🔗 Source: SoftBank

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

L4S support on consumer devices remains unclear

SoftBank, Ericsson and Qualcomm’s Tokyo field trial streamed extended reality (XR) from smart glasses to a phone, cutting wireless link latency by about 90%. Support for low latency, low loss, and scalable throughput (L4S) on shipping devices or Android or Snapdragon cellular modems remains unclear.
In the U.S., T-Mobile says L4S runs without a special phone or plan 1, so some chipsets may include support.
The carrier also works with Qualcomm and other chipmakers on L4S for future devices 2, which hints that peak results may need newer hardware.
Outside Japan, T-Mobile is expanding L4S across U.S. cities 1, but the timeline for smartphones and extended reality (XR) stacks to fully use it remains uncertain.

Third-party developers can build QoS-optimized streaming as operators expose network APIs

SoftBank or T-Mobile enable L4S plus network slicing (virtual lanes for specific apps). Developers can build L4S-tuned real time streaming software development kits (SDKs) or content delivery network (CDN) edge services that request Quality of Service (QoS) levels via application programming interfaces (APIs).
GSMA (the mobile industry trade group) says over 40 networks launched 94 Open Gateway APIs in 21 markets, with operators shifting focus to Quality-on-Demand (QoD) APIs 3.
SoftBank ran a CAMARA API field trial 4 (CAMARA is an open telco API project for standardized network access) that let external apps adjust communication quality.
CDN or app teams should track which operators in Japan or elsewhere expose QoS or QoD APIs through GSMA Open Gateway (a program to standardize telecom APIs across operators) 5 to time network aware streaming launches.