Group Executive for Technology and Information Systems at MTN, Mr. Babak Fouladi, has revealed that the telecom giant is relying on past successful deals with ZTE to grow digital broadband experience in Middle East and Africa (MEA).
Addressing Nairobi-based Africa Business Communities on the latest partnership with ZTE bordering on test running of 5G technology, he said the current drive is to fast track the commercialisation of 5G in both regions.
Already, logistics had been concluded to begin trials this year. The process will among other things, include field and laboratory tests of 5G Ne Radio, DevOps, 5G virtual network partition and Virtual Evolved Packet Core (vEPC).
Fouladi noted that “After having collaborated extensively in 2G, 3G and 4G, we are excited to work with ZTE in 5G. We believe that 5G is an evolutionary step to provide connectivity, data and access to our customers. We look forward to continuing our journey of innovation in the area of 5G and thus strengthen the current collaboration, in addition to exploring together the future orientation of the construction of networks and the progress of technology and bring services to our customers.”
Additional details show that the tests they will carry out on networks, applications and integral terminals using the architecture of the 5G technology will help make the business model and the user experience that can be drawn from the technology clear and inform plans for deployment in the Middle East and Africa.
However, whereas the local tests by MTN and ZTE are being awaited, another global telecoms services provider, Qualcomm has revealed that an extensive 5G network simulation it had successful conducted in Europe and the US over the past several months demonstrated the significant potential of 5G.
Qualcomm said it based the tests on quantitative insights into the expected real-world performance and user experience of 5G and Gigabit LTE devices that operate in Non-Standalone (NSA) multimode 4G/5G NR networks.
Continuing, the firm averred that its findings also provide quantitative support for the significant gains in capacity that can be realised by 5G NR over 4G LTE, as the technology industry prepares for the first wave of 5G networks and devices in the first half of 2019.
Explaining more, senior vice president of engineering at Qualcomm Technologies, Mr. Alex Holcman, was of the view that the company’s evaluations were done in order to help the industry in readying itself for a move to 5G.
He said “There is a lot of interest from various stakeholders in the mobile ecosystem – cloud platform providers, application developers, device OEMs, and others – in understanding the real-world performance that 5G NR mobile networks and devices will deliver. We undertook this comprehensive study to help the ecosystem prepare for the foray into 5G, so that application developers, for example, can begin planning new experiences and services for users with 5G devices.”
Moreover, details from the Qualcomm 5G Network Capacity Simulation show that emerging 5G networks will have the capacity and performance to support more services and experiences beyond the traditional categories of browsing, downloading, and streaming currently crowded by limited access to 4G in MEA.
