Page 76 - SAMENA Trends - February 2022

TECHNOLOGY UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

China to Deploy 2m 5G Sites by

End-2022

Chinese mobile providers have deployed a total of more
than 1.42 million 5G base stations, and are planning to
roll out a further 600,000 in 2022, CCTime writes, citing a
senior Ministry of Industry and Information Technology
(MIIT) official. According to the Ministry, 5G networks
currently cover all prefecture level cities, all counties and
urban areas and 87% of townships.

Telstra Achieves 5.9Gbps Downlink Speed on Commercial mmWave 5G

Network

Australian mobile network operator (MNO) Carrier Aggregation (DL 8CC CA), in which and Infrastructure Executive, claimed
Telstra, in collaboration with Ericsson eight contiguous carriers of 100MHz that the achievement demonstrated how
and Qualcomm, has reportedly set a mmWave are combined with 100MHz of the operator was constantly testing and
new network download speed record of mid-band spectrum, resulting in higher evolving technologies to implement in
5.9Gbps using a smartphone form factor data speeds on Telstra’s mmWave 5G their commercial network. ‘This time last
mobile test device. In a press release network. Meanwhile, the development year we pushed our network to a new top
regarding the development it was noted comes as the MNO prepares to launch speed of 5Gbps, now, twelve months on
that the accomplishment had been its third mmWave-compatible device, we have added almost another Gigabit per
achieved using Ericsson’s NR-DC software the NETGEAR Nighthawk M6 Pro, in April second on top of that’, the executive was
feature with downlink eight-component 2022. Iskra Nikolova, Telstra Network cited as saying.

KDDI Claims World ‘First’ with Live 5G SA Open RAN Site

Tokyo-headquartered fixed and mobile equipment manufacturers Samsung and what its claims is the world’s first commercial
operator KDDI (au), working with Fujitsu, has announced the switch-on of 5G Standalone (SA) Open RAN site powered by
virtualized Radio Access Network (vRAN) in
Kawasaki, Kanagawa prefecture. Launched on
18 February 2022, the 5G SA Open RAN site is
carrying live traffic on KDDI’s network thanks
to the deployment of Samsung’s 5G virtualized
CU (vCU) and virtualized DU (vDU), Fujitsu’s
Massive MIMO radio units. Going forward, the
three companies plan to extend the coverage
of Open RAN in select parts of Japan, including
rural areas, continuing ‘its deployment and
development, embracing openness and
virtualization in KDDI’s commercial network’.

Movistar Switches on 700MHz 5G Network

Telefonica Espana (Movistar) has launched covered from launch – a figure which will population after switching on the service
its 700MHz 5G network to coincide with rise to 1,400 by end-2022 and 2,400 by the back in September 2020.
the Mobile World Congress 2022 event end of 2023. The telco currently delivers
in Barcelona. A total of 700 towns are 3.5GHz 5G coverage to around 80% of the

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