Telecommunications giant MTN Nigeria has partnered with information and communications technology provider Huawei to complete the world’s first commercial deployment of sub-1 GHz massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology. Following the activation on the live network, low band LTE traffic surged by 104%, downlink user-perceived rate increased by 28%, and physical resource block utilisation decreased by 8% compared to the previous 4 Transmit 4 Receive (4T4R) antenna setup. This achievement marks a major leap in network capacity and significantly enhances the 4G user experience. Additionally, building on the prior deployment of C-Band and tri-mid-band massive MIMO, the collaboration successfully completed the world's first full-band massive MIMO site deployment. This milestone breakthrough marks MTN’s pioneering new era of all bands to massive MIMO.

As the most populous country in Africa, Nigeria is experiencing a profound transformation in mobile communications network. With a large number of 2G and 3G users migrating to 4G, emerging services such as short videos, live streaming, and mobile payments are booming, leading to an explosive growth in LTE traffic. However, owing to the limited low-band spectrum resources, network capacity is facing severe challenges and increasing congestion directly affects user experience. To address these challenges, MTN Nigeria and Huawei have jointly innovated and deployed sub-1 GHz massive MIMO. Compared to 4T4R, this solution doubles downlink LTE capacity. When evolving to New Radio (NR) in the future, capacity can be expanded by 3.2 times, effectively alleviating network congestion, fully unleashing suppressed traffic, and delivering a more stable and smoother high-speed mobile experience for users.

Huawei's sub-1 GHz massive MIMO is the first solution in the industry to combine extremely large antenna arrays and wideband technology in the prized low-band spectrum. This solution achieves a significant enhancement in low-band spectral efficiency through the efficient integration and coordination of fragmented spectrum resources. This solution supports the coexistence of GSM, UMTS, LTE, NR, and Narrow Band-Internet of Things (IoT), facilitating the seamless evolution of all bands to 5G. Further, with its innovations in materials, architecture, and algorithms, this breakthrough overcomes theoretical limitations and successfully addresses challenges such as excessive size, width, and weight of sub-1 GHz massive MIMO equipment, ensuring the commercial feasibility and completing the final piece of the puzzle for “all bands to massive MIMO”.

“At MTN, we are committed to building the most extensive, high-quality, and best-performing communications network,” said MTN Nigeria CTO Yahaya Ibrahim. “Our successful collaboration with Huawei on the commercial debut of sub-1 GHz massive MIMO has significantly boosted network performance, ensuring that every user can enjoy a faster, more stable, and superior connectivity experience. Moving forward, we will continue to deepen our partnership with Huawei to drive technological innovation, tackle key challenges in network development, and fuel the digital economy in Nigeria."

 Huawei wireless network product line VP Zeng Chuang said, “The first commercial rollout of sub-1 GHz massive MIMO validates its ability to significantly enhance spectral efficiency, network coverage, uplink speeds, and energy efficiency while reducing latency. This milestone paves the way for broader adoption, which will provide stable, reliable connectivity for diverse mobile AI terminals and large numbers of IoT devices. This will deliver superior experience to users anytime, anywhere.”