Brazilian carrier Vivo has announced the start of 5G tests in the 26 GHz band in partnership with Finnish vendor Nokia, local news site Teletime reported.
The trials will take place in Rio de Janeiro, in Vivo’s laboratory in Barra da Tijuca and two sites located in Barra and Recreio dos Bandeirantes.
According to the report, the tests are possible thanks to a specific license issued by Brazilian telecommunications regulator Anatel for testing 5G in the 26 GHz band.
The carrier said that the main goal is to observe which services may be developed using this frequency, including FWA or applications aimed at the corporate market.
“Tests are important for us to assess the performance and maturity of the technology and also what types of services can be launched, both for the B2B market and for end-consumers,” the director of network planning at Vivo, Elmo Matos, reportedly said.
In related news, Brazil’s 5G spectrum auction could face more delays after a director of Anatel, Moisés Queiroz Moreira, demanded more time to analyze the draft notice.
The government was expecting the regulator to approve the notice earlier this week, to publish the notice soon after, and launch the auction in October.
However, Moreira said he wanted more discussion regarding the installation of an exclusive government network and the fiber optics network planned under the integrated and sustainable Amazon program (Pais).
“These points, which mainly involve the Pais project and the construction of the government network, must be addressed, or at least debated and justified, with a possible need to carry out further steps with the ministry, in order to bring greater security to the decision to be made,” Moreira said in a press release.
Anatel president Leonardo de Morais said the 5G spectrum auction could now take place in early November.
Meanwhile, Communications minister Fábio Faria said that “a request for a review like this represents around 100 million reais ($19mn) in lost investments per day.
Last month, Brazil’s Federal Audit Court (TCU) had officially approved the tender process through which the government will auction frequencies for 5G.
According to previous reports, the 5G auction is expected to raise about 45 billion reais. Brazil’s Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovations and Communications had approved Brazil’s 5G auction process in February 2020, with airwaves in the 700 MHz, 2.3 GHz and 3.5 GHz bands set for sale alongside 26 GHz mmWave spectrum.
The minister had previously said that he expected all state capitals in Brazil to have operational 5G standalone networks by July 2022.
The future deployment of 5G technology in Brazil could have a $1.216 trillion economic impact and an increase in productivity of $3.08 trillion, according to a previous study by Nokia and Omdia. ICT, government, manufacturing, services, agriculture, and retail will be the industries most impacted by the future deployment of 5G in Brazil, the study concluded.
Brazilian operators TIM and Claro have already launched limited 5G offerings via DSS technology.
