Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica, working in conjunction with Chinese vendor ZTE, has successfully completed ‘Pre-5G’ Massive Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output (MIMO) live testing in Madrid, Spain. The trial marks Telefonica Group’s first Pre-5G Massive MIMO tests in Europe. In October 2016 ZTE and Telefonica started work on a Pre-5G Massive MIMO programme at the telco’s headquarters in Madrid, with a view to assessing its performance in hotspot and indoor coverage scenarios. ZTE notes that the performance of the Pre-5G Massive MIMO base station has exceeded expectations, improving both network capacity and cell-edge data rate up to six times compared to traditional LTE macro base stations, and reducing end-user interference through 3D-beamforming technology. All tests were based on existing 4G terminals.