At this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the first exhibition hall is difficult to overlook. Huawei occupies more than half the space inside the cavernous venue, signaling a clear message to the industry. The company wants attention focused on a single keyword: U6GHz.
As the long-term vision for 6G begins to take shape, global exploration of the U6GHz band is accelerating. Operators in the UAE, Brazil, and several European countries have recently conducted experience verification tests supporting speeds of up to ten gigabits per second. These trials highlight the band’s growing relevance for future mobile networks.
Huawei describes U6GHz as a balance among capacity, coverage, and cost. Over the next decade, it could become a core spectrum resource for mobile network expansion and upgrades, functioning as a high-speed foundation for 5G-Advanced (5G-A) and eventually 6G.
During MWC, Huawei introduced a portfolio of U6GHz products and solutions that includes macro sites, small cells, and microwave equipment.
The band still presents technical constraints. Higher frequencies experience greater signal loss, which limits long-distance propagation. In practical terms, U6GHz offers wider bandwidth but does not inherently provide broader coverage.
Huawei’s response centers on a series of AAU (active antenna unit) products. The primary change is scale. Conventional antennas often integrate only dozens of transmitting and receiving units. Huawei’s U6GHz 256 TRX AAU integrates 256 units, which the company compares to hundreds of small flashlights working together.
The AAU also incorporates digital-analog hybrid intelligent beamforming algorithms. These algorithms coordinate the 256 transmitting and receiving units so they function as a single, directed signal source.
According to Huawei, combining dense antenna arrays with beamforming algorithms allows signal energy to be concentrated more efficiently, helping offset propagation loss at higher frequencies. The company states that this approach enables U6GHz to achieve coverage and propagation performance comparable to current mainstream 5G C-band spectrum, which operates at approximately 3.5 GHz.
Once signal attenuation is mitigated, performance becomes the next consideration. Huawei emphasizes two capabilities: 400 MHz ultra-large bandwidth and the MU-MIMO (multi-user, multiple-input, multiple-output) algorithm.
In simplified terms, Huawei expands available spectrum from roughly 100 MHz in conventional 5G deployments to 400 MHz. Wider spectrum allows more data to be transmitted simultaneously. The hyper-resolution MU-MIMO algorithm then manages how multiple users access that spectrum, improving efficiency and resource allocation.
In on-site demonstrations at MWC, Huawei reported that the U6GHz AAU can reach peak downlink capacity of 100 gigabits per second and uplink capacity exceeding ten gigabits per second. For end users, Huawei says the system can support downlink speeds of up to ten gigabits per second and uplink speeds approaching one gigabit per second.
Many artificial intelligence applications are expected to run indoors in the coming years. Because U6GHz signals experience higher wall penetration loss, Huawei also introduced U6GHz small cell products to support indoor connectivity.
These small cells support 400 MHz bandwidth in the U6GHz band and integrate U6GHz with other sub-6 GHz bands within a single device. In practice, this creates a unified signal hotspot with multiple spectrum options, allowing both legacy and next-generation devices to connect under the same system.
While AAUs and small cells address outdoor and indoor access, Huawei is also targeting backhaul infrastructure.
To support the high bandwidth requirements of U6GHz base stations, the company introduced new microwave transmission products. These systems use full-duplex technology, enabling simultaneous transmission and reception on the same frequency. Huawei says this approach can deliver high-capacity wireless backhaul without relying on fiber connections.
The goal is to prevent bottlenecks at what network engineers often call the “last mile.”
Taken together, Huawei is building what it describes as a closed-loop network architecture centered on U6GHz. If AI terminals, base stations, and cloud infrastructure operate in coordination, data can move through the network with fewer constraints. Huawei states that its full U6GHz product portfolio is now commercially ready.
KrASIA features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This article was written by Qiu Xiaofen for 36Kr.