Aalto NextG has several assets enabling near-full scale experiments with networks. Aalto campus area at Otaniemi is well covered with fibre optical cable allowing good connectivity to wireless networks. The 4G/5G wireless network is connected to the national 5G test network (5GTNF). It allows use of multiple mobile cores sharing same radio resources: of more than fifty mobile networks in Finland, almost one out of five is operated by Aalto. Currently MNC (Mobile Network Code) 51 is used for NB-IoT technologies in the 700 MHz frequency range, MNC 52 is used for 5G technologies in the 3.5 GHz frequency range, and MNCs 50 and 53 to 59 can be used to test for example roaming. Different aspects of technologies can be studied in isolation and in joint settings.
Aalto NextG is an infrastructure supporting research on future mobile networks. Current research focuses on developing Advanced radio communication systems and internet technologies for 5th generation mobile communication systems and beyond. There, the focus is on flexible spectrum use, Internet of Things (IoT), ultra-low latency communications, network protocols and software, virtualisation and cloudification of networks, network big data, and energy efficiency as well as on network security, trust and resiliency. Wireless and Internet communication research requires variety of experimentation and test environment in addition to simulation and analytical development. Some of research can be performed in an emulated environment using e.g., radio channel emulation while others need real radio. One experiment needs 180 units of cheap single board computers; on the other experiment, a full mobile network with several datacentres is required.