Nokia unveils new ReefShark 5G chipset, promises up to 84 Gbps per cell

Nokia has partnered with 30 carriers to build out the next-gen mobile network with its latest ReefShark chipset. To be clear, this is part of the carrier architecture, not what goes in the phone. But it’s quite something and should deliver a much-improved experience to us all at a lower cost to the carriers.

The major advancements are a 3x increase of the throughput of each cell. And this is achieved with MIMO antennas that are half the size and 64% more power efficient than the current hardware.

The new ReeffShark chipset is delivered as a plug-in unit that attaches to current Nokia AirScale baseband modules (which are a software upgrade away from full 5G functionality). Once that is done, one cell can push out 84 Gbps of mobile data and multiple cells can be chained for a total of 6 Tbps – necessary for the densest areas of the largest cities.

The setup fully supports network slicing – what allows virtual network operators to share hardware. The new ReefSharks will ship out in volume in the third quarter of this year.