Tele2 Latvia’s investment in Nokia’s 5G-ready technology will enable the service provider to realize data speeds five times that of its existing LTE (News - Alert) network. At least that’s what test results of the new technology indicate.
The company recently completed installation of the Nokia gear at two of its locations. And it did some testing, which yielded the above-noted results.
The Latvian operator is leveraging Nokia AirScale hardware and software at its base stations in the Ziepniekkalns district of capital Riga and the nearby town of Talsi. It also plans to employ this equipment, which in tests has demonstrated its ability to support speeds of 500 megabits per second, in short order at base stations in Valmiera.
While the Valmiera gear will be in place by the end of the year (just a few days) and the Riga and Talsi deployments are already ready to roll, it will likely take a couple of years until most users can acquire 5G endpoints, according to the carrier.
Zdnet in September reported the Qualcomm (News - Alert) announcement suggesting that the first mass-market 5G smartphones will become commercially available by 2019.
In other recent 5G news, earlier this month a 3GPP group including AT&T, BT, China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, DT, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Huawei, Intel, KT Corp., LG Electronics (News - Alert), LG Uplus, NediaTek Inc., NEC Corp., Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Orange, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics, SK Telecom, Sony Mobile, Sprint, TIM, Telefphonia, T-Mobile USA, Verizon (News - Alert), Vodafone, and ZTE announced plans for large scale trials and commercial deployments of 5G NR starting in early 2019.
Marcus Weldon, president of Nokia Bell Labs (News - Alert) and CTO at Nokia, said: “This is a key milestone in bringing 5G to market, and one in which Nokia is proud to have played a significant role. 5G will advance new possibilities for the role of wireless technology in society, leading to dynamic innovation in mobile broadband and in industrial automation for industry 4.0, enabling the creation of exciting new applications that connect and control our physical and digital worlds.”
Edited by
Mandi Nowitz
