A report from Viavi Solutions claims 12 operators have already carried out field testing of 5G technology.
Twenty-five mobile operators have announced plans for lab testing of “5G” technologies, according to a recent report by Viavi Solutions. Of those 25 operators, 12 have progressed to field tests and four have announced plans to launch 5G trials.
The Viavi report notes five operators have claimed to have hit data speeds of at least 35 gigabits per second in 5G trials, with Etisalat demonstrating speeds up to 36 Gbps; Ooredoo conducting tests at 35.46 Gbps; and Optus, M1 and Starhub having achieved data speeds of around 35 Gbps. Viavi added the other operators have reported data speeds of at least 2 Gbps.
The report also revealed mobile operators are testing 5G technology across a range of spectrum bands, ranging from below 3 GHz up to the 86 GHz bands. Five network equipment vendors have announced they are involved in these 5G trials, including Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia, Samsung and ZTE, with some operators working with multiple vendors on their 5G trials.
Viavi went on to explain that this push will require the industry to look at new network delivery methods in order to meet growing consumer demand, highlighting some of the areas it just so happens to participate in.
“The pace of 5G development is already beyond the expectations of many observers,” said Viavi CTO Sameh Yamany, in a statement. “Now, as the technical delivery of data is starting to coalesce, it is time to think ahead to how future 5G networks can manage the disparate requirements of high data rates, very low-latency applications and large-scale [internet of things] services while maintaining quality of service. … This underlines the importance of ‘network slicing’ whereby multiple cloud-based functions within a virtualized network can be automated and programmed to meet different use cases and requirements. Service providers and their partners will require solutions that are virtualized from one end of the network to the other and have automated and correlated intelligence across each network slice for monitoring, optimization and service assurance.”
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