Ericsson and Russian telco MTS have partnered to trial 5G mobile network during global event
Russian mobile network operator Mobile TeleSystems and Swedish vendor Ericsson signed a cooperation agreement on the research and deployment of “5G” networks in Russia. The two companies plan to conduct network trials and develop technical requirements for the new telecommunications standard with the goal of conducting trials during the 2018 World Cup.
“Despite the fact that requirements for the network standard are only beginning to form, we believe it is of great importance to begin its development today by signing this agreement with Ericsson,” said MTS VP and CTO Andrey Ushatskiy. “In order for both sides to gain a comprehensive understanding of performance solutions for 5G networks in Russia by 2018, we plan to start testing our key vendor’s developments through a series of pilot projects on the MTS network next year.”
MTS and Ericsson agreed to implement a pilot project in LTE-Unlicensed/Licensed-Assisted Access that involves the use of the LTE radio interface in the unlicensed 5 GHz band together with Wi-Fi access points in 2016.
MTS and Ericsson also plan to deploy 5G pilot solutions using high-speed data transmission in the 15 GHz band in 2017 and construct the test area for the demonstration of 5G technology solutions during the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
“By 2018, we plan to not only conduct research, but also test and implement key technologies that will improve MTS network performance and application coverage,” said Jeff Travers, head of customer unit at Ericsson Northern Europe and Central Asia.
TIM launches VoLTE service
In other EMEA news, Italian mobile telephony operator TIM commercially launched voice-over-LTE services dubbed “Voce 4G.” The service is available across the operator’s entire LTE network, which was launched in November 2012. TIM’s LTE infrastructure currently reaches 85% of the country’s population.
Users need to subscribe to the “TIM Special Unlimited” plan and have the Samsung S6, S6 Edge, LG G4 or Microsoft Lumia 950 smartphones.
TIM currently offers data speeds up to 300 megabits per second using carrier aggregation technology in Rome, Milano, Torino, Genova, Napoli, Prato, Verona and Palermo.
