The countdown has begun for large scale commercialisation of 5G networks worldwide.
Despite tough competition, China-based Huawei Technologies Co Ltd has strategically positioned itself for 5G networks dominance by making comprehensive preparations.
The global powerhouse in integrated communications, wireless infrastructure, smartphones and enterprise networking has envisaged that many leading global telecommunication operators in 2018 will be announcing the commercial deployment of the 5G – a powerful new technology which means new growth for the mobile industry.
Huawei has also forecast that the number of mobile connections will rise to 20 billion by 2025 from eight billion currently, thus bringing digital to every person, home and organisation for a fully connected, intelligent world.
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In recent years, Huawei has established a close working relationship with major telco operators particularly in Europe and Asia, of which over 30 memorandums of understanding (MoUs) were reported to have been signed so far.
Some of these MoUs have led to trial 5G equipment by the telcos and could later could translate into full commercial deals for Huawei in the long run, including agreements with Britain’s BT, Bell Canada (BCE), France’s Orange, Germany’s Deutsche Telekom and global player Vodafone.
5G trials
The 5G networks, now in the testing stage, will rely on denser arrays of small antennas and the cloud to offer data speeds of up to 50 or 100 times faster than current 4G networks and serve as critical infrastructure for a range of industries.
By 2025, some 1.2 billion people worldwide are set to have access to 5G networks – a third of them in China, according to the GSMA, a global trade group of nearly 800 mobile operators.
According to Huawei rotating CEO Ken Hu, Huawei has been conducting pre-commercial 5G trials with more than 30 telcos in world’s biggest cities, including Seoul, Tokyo, London, Milan and Vancouver.
Huawei to date has signed 5G field trial agreements with 45 operators, he said at MCW 2018 recently.
Hu also concurs that 2018 will mark the first year of commercialisation for 5G as “we have been seeing the emergence of real demand for 5G technologies.”
He points out that the 5G standards and technologies were maturing.
As market demand continues to grow, Hu says Huawei plans to launch a full range of end-to-end 5G products including customer premise equipment to help carriers get a head start on 5G.
“Huawei will also continue to develop new technologies and work with the industry partners to develop a 5G ecosystem.
“The ultimate goal is to build a fully connected, intelligent world,” Hu adds.
Huawei 5G Product Line president Yang Chaobin at the launching of Huawei’s full range end-to-end (E2E) 3GPP-compliant 5G product solutions said 2018 will be remembered as the first year that marks the beginning of the 5G era.
By using a full range of leading and mature 5G E2E full scenario products solutions, Hu notes that Huawei has realised the continuous deployment of 5G sites in more than 10 countries namely China, South Korea, Canada, Germany, UK and Italy.
“In typically densely-populated urban areas, these products solutions have provided ubiquitou Gbps-level access rate, hundreds of Mbps of indoor access experience and over 20 Gbps cell capacity,” he points out.
The newly launch 5G E2E products solutions include the core network, the bearer network, base station and terminals.
In another major event at MWC 2018, Huawei and China Telecom have established a Business Joint Innovation Center (BJIC) to jointly develop innovative products and solutions that will offer users information and communication services.
Both companies will invest in joint development, verification and go-to-market of products and solutions to accelerate provisioning of new products and achieve shared success.
Axiata’s Apigate business
Meanwhile, on the sidelines of MWC 2018, Malaysia-based Axiata Group’s subsdiary Axiata Digital Services Sdn Bhd is eyeing to further expand its Apigate business.
Apigate basically helps content and services providers, mobile network operators, small and medium entreprises, tech startups and developers reached their consumers around the world via its Application Programme Interfaces (API) platform called ApigateHub.
The API Gateway hubs located in Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America as well as the integration with major application marketplaces provided access to mobile phone consumers across every services for direct carrier billing, voice, messaging, mobile money, location and identity.
Axiata Digital CEO Mohd Khairil Abdullah told Malaysian journalists here that “In recent years API business has shown tremendous growth and well positioned to capture the opportunity towards a US$1bil business.”
Hence, Apigate is planning to launch more new API products in the near future given the vast opportunities and increasing demand.
In addition, APIs stand to benefit the telco ecosystem. “APIs actually opens up new opportunities whereby innovative developers can connect to a mobile network operator which have open APIs and offer new services to their customers.
“This helps to open up new markets and revenues for both parties,” explained Khairil.
He added that Apigate has grown from strength to strength with ApigateHub has a reach of 1.3 billion users and connects more than 50 mobile network operators and over 200 online merchants.
At MWC 2018, Apigate and Orange, a world’s leading telco operator announced a new partnership to strengthen their respective API hubs.
Apigate and Orange’s new hub, Bizao (www.Bizao.com) will draw on their respective geographical strengths across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, to deliver a suite of APIs to businesses, providing a streamlined and efficient method of accessing customers via a single entry point across regions.
This will enable faster deployment for businesses to distribute and monetise their services.
Source: https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2018/03/17/huawei-eyes-5g-network-dominance/