Celcom Axiata Berhad demonstrated its 5G technology trial yesterday, the first in Malaysia. The trial featured 5G Radio Prototypes from Ericsson, achieving a peak throughput up to 18Gbps (Gigabits per second) and latency as low as 3ms (milliseconds).
It is also the first 5G trial conducted on the 28GHz band in South East Asia. Celcom and Ericsson also demonstrated futuristic 5G use cases such as robotic control, connected environment, virtual reality, Internet of Things (IoT) applications and 4K video streaming over 5G – from video capture at the server end to playback on the 5G prototype device.
Michael Kuehner, Chief Executive Officer of Celcom Axiata Berhad, says: “Celcom is committed to developing and continuing the evolution of its network with the latest technologies, to bring the best digital experience for Malaysians. 5G is very important to Celcom as it will support the development and meet the communication needs of consumers and digitisation of various industries. It is critical that we explore this new generation technology and its capabilities with global partners like Ericsson.”
Late last month, Celcom announced its LTE-Advanced Pro network called Lightning Fast LTE that will involve the deployment of key technologies such as 4×4 multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) and 256 QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) to provide users with data speeds up to 400Mbps (megabits per second). Celcom will offer its Lightning Fast LTE service from August 2017 onwards.
In the near future, Celcom will also deploy IoT (Internet of Things) to enable digital and connected living.
Todd Ashton, Head of Ericsson Malaysia & Sri Lanka, says: “Ericsson is committed to bringing the latest technology advancements, including 5G, to Malaysia and our partner Celcom. This collaboration with Celcom is a further demonstration of our support for Malaysia on its journey towards 5G, following on from the success of the Innovation Center for 5G that we set up last year with Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. Together with partners like Celcom, we will study and test this new technology to capture the full potential of 5G for consumers, business users and entire industries in the country.”
Ericsson said the new capabilities of 5G span across several dimensions, including tremendous flexibility, lower energy requirements, greater capacity, bandwidth, security, reliability and data rates, as well as lower latency and device costs.
The first generation mobile network (1G) was all about voice. 2G was about voice + texting. 3G was about voice + texting + data. 4G was everything in 3G but faster. 5G will be something totally different.
Ericsson claims 5G will deliver:
- Up to 100 times faster data rates: instant access to services and applications
- Network latency lowered by a factor of five:use cases in areas such as intelligent transport and remote machinery
- Mobile data volumes expanded by a factor of 1,000
- Ten times better battery life: remote sensors and more sustainable networks
Ericsson 5G Radio Prototypes pack 64 radio chains, advanced beamforming and multi-user or MU-MIMO, into a compact, easy to deploy form factor, the size of a carry-on luggage.
