Ericsson, UScellular drones to test 5G

by DRONELIFE Staff Writer Ian M Crosby

Today, UScellular and Ericsson revealed that they have started using drones for 5G testing at altitude.

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The first of their kind with UScellular’s 5G network, these tests will establish a foundation for other use cases of cellular-connected drones in the future.

The companies’ first visual line of sight trials were held in Beloit, Wis., with a drone flown between two of UScellular’s commercial 5G towers. The drone was equipped with a 5G smartphone and RF measurement equipment designed to capture performance metrics like signal strength and quality, upload and download speeds, and latency throughout the flights at various altitudes. Using both low and high band spectrum, data was captured with the goal of gathering and analyzing network connectivity and speed data in the air in order to compare it to the speeds experienced on the…