Telefónica and Sony Achieve Record 1.8 Gbps Upload in 5G mmWave Trial

Telefónica, in partnership with Sony, has successfully completed a pioneering 5G millimeter-wave (mmWave) connectivity trial at the Movistar Arena in Madrid. Leveraging the 26 GHz band—where Telefónica holds a dominant 1,000 MHz of spectrum—the pilot demonstrated the network's capability to support massive public data consumption alongside high-demand professional broadcast applications. The trial prominently featured a "Heavy Uplink" configuration optimized specifically for data transmission, achieving record-breaking upload speeds of over 1.8 Gbps. This milestone marks the highest uplink speed ever deployed on a commercial 5G network in Spain, unlocking new possibilities for multi-feed, remote 4K production in dense, high-traffic environments.

The pilot was carried out in collaboration with Sony, which was able to test the operation of a 5G audiovisual broadcasting system based on elements such as the CBK-RPU7 remote production unit for ultra-low latency HEVC video encoding. The 4K Ultra High Definition image captured by HXC-FZ90, were transmitted after encoding up to 100Mbps, to 5G network via Sony's PDT-FP1 portable data transmitter and then decoded by an NXL-ME80 media processor. 

Leonor Ostos, Director of Product and Service Development at Telefónica Spain, highlights: "This installation in the 26 GHz 5G band at the Movistar Arena demonstrates our commitment to next-generation networks. This technology enables use cases involving the management of large volumes of data in real time, driving both professional use within the industry and a superior connected experience for the public at mass events such as concerts and major sporting events. This development also reflects our determination to be the best gateway to digital technologies, consolidating our position as an innovative and competitive company, focused on offering more and better services to the customer." 

Rob Thorne, Category Head of Networked Live, Sony Professional Europe, highlights: "5G promises greater flexibility for production companies, but bandwidth and architecture limitation have held it back untill now. By combining the 5G mmWave technology deployed at the Movistar Arena, with Sony's unique HEVC solution, we're proving that 5G can meet the high-quality, low-latency demands of live production today". 

This millimetre-wave pilot marks another step forward for Telefónica in its leadership of the transformation of sports entertainment through the deployment of 5G television production solutions, in which it has achieved milestones such as automated broadcasting with ultra-low latency at stadiums such as the Abanca-Riazor in A Coruña and the Riyadh Air Metropolitano.  

Another notable example of this capability was the production of the Acciona , during which a 5G network was used in 2021—for the first time in a European professional tournament—to connect drones and wireless cameras. 

https://www.telefonica.com/en/