Bulgarian telco Mobiltel (Mtel), a subsidiary of the A1 Group, has undertaken what it claims to be ‘the first demonstration of 5G technology in the country’, achieving peak rates of above 2Gbps and a low lag of one millisecond. Todor Tashev, Mtel’s chief technical director, said: ‘We expect the 5G standard to be set in 2018, and we are ready to implement the technology as soon as devices are in place to support it and we have the necessary frequencies. This will be a network of networks that will unify all existing standards and allow the development of future technologies.’