Huawei and du partnered to cover the entire area with advanced FWA technology
DUBAI-UNITED ARAB EMIRATES—Emirati-based telco du said it has launched a 5G-Advanced (5G-A), or “5.5G” villa in Dubai in partnership with Chinese vendor Huawei.
Early in March this year, both entities signed a MoU centered on 5G-A technological innovation, application exploration and ecosystem development.
The two companies partnered to cover the entire area with advanced Fixed Wireless Access technology.
The new offering, supported by Huawei’s latest 5G-Advanced FWA technology, will enable residents in the villa, located in Jumeirah Islands, to immerse themselves into naked-eye 3D videos, 8K UHD streaming and XR games, the partners said. These services are currently enabled by du’s “5.5G” Experience Carrier, providing subscribers with real-time peak speeds of 10 Gbps.
“The showcase offers a first-hand look at the infinite possibilities that 5G-A technology will bring to future homes and the better network experience that 5G-A will offer mobile users. It is the result of du’s continuous pursuit of a better digital experience. This achievement is only the beginning. Moving forward, Huawei will continually support du in its effort to build the best 5G networks and explore the commercial use of 5G-A networks,” said Li Peng, Huawei’s corporate senior vice president and president of the company’s carrier business group.
During a keynote session at the Huawei’s 14th Global Mobile Broadband Forum (MBBF) being held this week in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, Karim Benkirane, chief commercial officer at du noted that ‘5.5G’ networks will help carriers overcome challenges that exist in deployment of fixed wireless access.
Benkirane also said the FWA technology had the potential to provide better experiences compared to fiber in the future. However, the executive noted that one of the challenges that FWA currently faces is that consumers don’t know the difference between FWA and fiber because for them “it’s connectivity, it’s Wi-Fi.” He added that FWA technology needs to provide a differentiator in terms of speed, latency and capacity in order to gain momentum.
During another keynote session, Saif Bin Ghelaita, executive director of technology development affairs at the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA) of the United Arab Emirates, said that the country and local operators have a shared commitment for the development of 5G-Advanced technologies.
TDRA had recently announced the completion of the second phase of its “5G-Advanced” trials project, saying that the tests achieved speeds up to 10 Gbps using a wide swath of 6 GHz spectrum.
TDRA noted that the new phase of this trial was conducted in cooperation with local telecom service providers e& and du. The main aim of the trial was to “unlock the full speed of 5G in the 6 GHz frequency range” using 400 megahertz of bandwidth, along with verifying the potential of this band in improving the user experience in the UAE.
The regulator explained the significance of the 6 GHz frequency band lies in the fact that it marks an “advanced step towards the widespread application of the IoT” and other advanced 5G use cases, by reaching speeds of 10 Gbps. The regulator also claimed that the UAE was the first country to reach this speeds at both regional and global level.
