Singtel and Ericsson jointly completed a live demonstration on the potential of 5G, titled ‘Making 5G Innovation A Reality’.
The demonstration showcased the 5G Radio Prototype of Ericsson to display the capabilities offered by the new technology, flaunting a high throughput of 27.5Gbps with latency as low as 2ms.
The companies also put on show a low latency live video streaming over 5G, from the time of video capture at the server end to the time it is displayed at the device.
The Singapore based carrier will deploy key pre-5G technologies such as LTE-Advanced at a Carrier aggregation of 256QAM, on its live network by moving onto LTE Advanced Pro (LAA, NB-IoT).
5G technology will be standardized and commercially marketed by 2020 and hence the Ericsson 5G Radio Prototypes are designed to enable operators, ecosystem partners, academics and analysts to test 5G capabilities live.
Features of the service include multi-point connectivity with distributed multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) and 5G-LTE dual connectivity, assisting in the evolution to 5G and rapid adoption of new 5G-based services.
The Ericsson 5G Radio Prototype has demonstrated record-breaking throughput, along-with interworking between network layers, frequency bands, and technology standards to ensure connectivity among billions of connected devices, machines and things, supporting consumer, business and industrial applications.
Singtel recently announced live trial of License Assisted Access (LAA) 4G across its network in partnership with Ericsson, saying the mobile technology will boost network capacity and speeds indoors and will be rolled out over the next two years, beginning in the first half of 2017.
Also in February, both the companies revealed their collaboration on enabling Singtel 4G network for the IoT, including a trial of narrowband IoT technology during the latter half of 2016. Both groups have also been working on a “blueprint” for 5G deployment across Singapore since January last year, signing a memorandum of understanding to “study the future of 5G networks and its applications” for consumers and enterprises.
Ericsson demonstrated the capability of network slicing for 5G mobile communications infrastructure with SK Telecom in South Korea.
Singtel saw its revenue down by 5.6 percent to $4.09 billion in March quarter, 2016. The company will invest $2.11 billion or S$3 billion in Australia and Singapore in 2016, out of which S$1.9 billion will be for Australia and S$1.1 billion will be for Singapore towards capital expenditure (Capex).
Vina Krishnan
editor@telecomlead.com
