The 5G-based service will deliver a maximum download speed of 2 Gbps, Huawei said
Chinese vendor Huawei and U.K. carrier Three showcased a 5G home broadband demonstration using Three’s 100 megahertz of C-Band spectrum last week at the vendor’s Global Mobile Broadband Forum in London.
The demonstration leveraged Huawei’s latest 5G-based home broadband routers to allow forum attendees to experience ultra-high-speed 5G broadband services such as cloud gaming and 4K video streaming, Huawei said.
The vendor highlighted that the 5G broadband service will deliver a maximum download speed of 2 Gbps, with an average of 1 Gbps for a single user.
Huawei and Three U.K. carried out a pre-commercial network test of this technology earlier this year. The two companies plan to carry out further 5G service tests in the U.K. in the coming months, which are expected to be released to the public in densely-populated urban areas and train stations, paving the way for the full commercial use of 5G networks in 2019.
“The 5G trials we carried out today demonstrate the opportunity this technology brings to the home broadband market. Huawei will continue to work with Three UK to bring customers more market-leading commercial applications of 5G,” said Yang Chaobin, President of Huawei 5G Product Line, said.
5G for fixed wireless seems to be a relevant business opportunity for a number of carriers globally. US operator Verizon took a leading position in the FWA field with the recent launch of its 5G-branded fixed wireless home broadband service. This new FWA offering is initially based on the company’s Verizon Technical Forum standard rather than 3GPP’s 5G New Radio specification.
The broadband service is currently available in parts of Houston, Texas; Indianapolis, Indiana and Los Angeles and Sacramento, California. Verizon uses its millimeter wave spectrum to deliver with average speeds around 300 Mbps, peaking around 1 Gbps, to consumer premise equipment located in a subscribers home.
Verizon had previously detailed plans to upgrade related sites with 5G NR-compatible equipment and is also planning a mobile 5G service for 2019.
In a recent report, Ericsson highlighted that wireless fiber is best suited for suburban environments and, if the goal is connecting the unconnected, the best market areas are rural villages, suburban areas and multi-family urban dwellings. For all three options, “sparsely populated single family homes” aren’t ideal places to deploy, according to Ericsson.
“FWA will not be driven by technology, but rather the market opportunity for each operator in a specific geography, as with traditional fixed broadband. From this starting point, operators should select the combination of technologies and the spectrum strategy most suited to the market opportunity,” Ericsson said.
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