T-Mobile US, which has maintained silence over its investment in new areas, is the next telecom operator to plunge into 5G business.
AT&T and Verizon have already huge claims about 5G. Both AT&T and Verizon may be launching 5G mobile services – to boost their IoT revenues – even before 2020, the anticipated time for the global launch of 5G.
The interesting fact is the presence of rivals Ericsson and Nokia in assisting T-Mobile and the absence of Chinese rivals Huawei and ZTE.
Though the latest Ericsson Mobility Report predicted just 150 million 5G subscriptions in 2021, top telecom network operators are in the process of making investments in 5G.
T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray on 5G
T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray said true wireless 5G is still years away. Broad deployment should be here toward the end of the decade.
“Still, that fact hasn’t stopped the carriers from making ridiculous promises to deliver 5G in 2017 and then having to run away from those promises. Watching all this nonsense, I’ve been amazed by the carriers’ complete lack of vision for 5G’s potential as well as their naiveté about how we’ll all get to 5G,” Neville Ray said at a telecom conference.
“AT&T wants to connect your world by connecting your microwave and everything else in your life – including your bank account – to AT&T. Verizon’s vision is that you can cancel your fixed broadband and watch Netflix at home with wireless Verizon broadband,” said Neville Ray.
Broadband and IoT are exciting opportunities. 5G is not only about connected cities or refrigerators or wireless replacements to your home broadband. “We see 5G completely transforming the mobile Internet and delivering amazing breakthroughs,” Neville Ray said.
Mobile virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence and more – will all be made better and available on-the-go because of 5G. 5G wireless will be anchored in and live alongside an amazingly advanced LTE network.
Telecom equipment maker Nokia and T-Mobile said they used T-Mobile’s 28GHz spectrum and Nokia’s 5G-ready AirScale radio platform for 5G air interface lab test and achieved real-time latency of 1.8 milliseconds while streaming four simultaneous 4K videos.
T-Mobile and Ericsson announced the results of their 5G trial that included a voice call between 4G and 5G networks, using Ericsson’s 5G radio prototype system and T-Mobile’s LTE network and devices.
The demonstration showed it was possible to achieve connection throughput of over 12 Gbps for 5G downloads and ultra-low latency connections of less than 2 milliseconds.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
