Massive MIMO supports an order of magnitude higher spectral efficiency than legacy LTE networks. The largest gains come from spatial multiplexing of many users per cell, thus these gains can only be harvested when there are many users requesting data at every given millisecond, which requires larger traffic loads than you might think since many seemingly continuous user applications only send data sporadically.

For this reason, I used to say that outdoor musical festivals, where a crowd of 100,000 people gather to see their favorite bands, would be a first deployment scenario for Massive MIMO. This is fairly similar to what now has happened: The Russian telecom operator MTS has deployed more than 40 state-of-the-art LTE sites with Massive MIMO functionality in seven cities where the 2018 FIFA World Cup in football is currently taking place. The base stations are deployed to cover the stadiums, fan zones, airports, train stations, and major parks/squares; in other words, the places where huge crowds of football fans are expected.

In the press release, Andrei Ushatsky, Vice President of MTS, says:

“This launch is one of Europe’s largest Massive MIMO deployments, covering seven Russian cities, and is a major contribution by MTS in the preparation of the country’s infrastructure for the global sporting event of the year. Our Massive MIMO technology, using Ericsson equipment, significantly increases network capacity, allowing tens of thousands of fans together in one place to enjoy high-speed mobile internet without any loss in speed or quality.”

While this is one of the first major deployments of Massive MIMO, more will certainly follow in the coming years. More research into the development and implementation of advanced signal processing and resource management schemes will also be needed for many years to come – this is just the beginning.