Finnish vendor Nokia and Turkish mobile telephony operator Türk Telekom have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to accelerate the development of 5G radio access network technology.
Under the terms of the MoU, both firms will work together on testing 5G and Internet of Things technologies for tracking, metering, smart cities, smart home and latency-sensitive applications. They will then use their findings to develop 5G-ready solutions that will allow Türk Telekom to evolve its network and be ready for the eventual introduction of commercial 5G services.
The Finnish company is currently deploying 4G LTE-Advanced technology for Türk Telekom, and the operator has already launched LTE-A services in Turkey.
The new agreement will see the companies focusing on the development of a cloud architecture for radio and core network technology that can support network slicing technology in particular. With network slicing, a 5G network can be tailored to the diverse needs of different sectors such as healthcare, security, automotive, public safety, industrial manufacturing, smart cities and more.
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“Working with Nokia, we have already launched 4G LTE-Advanced in Turkey, and the development of 5G technology will allow us to drive digital revolution, changing the way of life for our customers and growing the economy. We are pleased to yet again leverage Nokia’s expertise and innovation leadership,” Türk Telekom’s CEO Rami Aslan said.
“Our work with customers on 5G is crucial in allowing us to better understand real network use-cases for this technology and to accelerate commercial use,” Ernst Nassl, head of customer business team Turkey and Central Asia at Nokia, said.
Broadband Belgium to set up 3.5 GHz TD-LTE network in Brussels
In other EMEA news, Belgian wireless broadband operator b.lite and its sister company Mac Telecom have transferred their combined 3.5 GHz and 10.5 GHz spectrum rights to Belgian start-up firm Broadband Belgium. The latter company aims to use the 3.5 GHz frequencies to set up a time division duplex LTE (TD-LTE) wireless internet network in Brussels by the end of 2015. The Belgian Institute for Post and Telecommunications (BIPT) approved the transfer of spectrum rights in December 2015. Both licenses will expire on April 2019.