“5G” Fixed Wireless Technology to be Deployed in Philippines by Globe Telecom in 2Q 2019
It certainly appears that any new or different wireless access technology is being called “5G,” even if it has nothing to do with the ITU-R IMT 2020 recommendations due to be completed in late 2020.
Case in point: Philippines telco Globe Telecom announced yesterday that its first “5G” network service is scheduled for commercial roll out by the second quarter of 2019. Globe President and CEO Ernest Cu said this version of “5G” technology would enable Globe to use (Huawei’s) Air Fiber technology in relation to deployment of fixed wireless broadband that would benefit individual customers at home and business clients alike. The new network will provide higher speeds, lower latency, and better capacity. This will enable Globe to deploy fixed wireless broadband at fiber-like speeds.
“Air Fiber internet, which makes use of fixed location wireless radios instead of fiber, could provide speeds ranging from 50 Mbps to 100 Mbps. “We have been preparing our network for sometime now with our existing vendor partners, including Huawei Technologies. We are happy to bring the Philippines in line with other countries who are early adopters of 5G. Once again, we stay true to our commitment to bring first world internet in the country.” Cu added.
Globe brings 5G technology to the Philippines. Globe President and CEO Ernest Cu (middle), together with Globe Chief Technology and Information Officer Gil Genio (right) and Huawei Southern Pacific Region Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer Lim Chee Siong (left), leads the launch of “5G” in the Philippines. (PRNewsfoto/Globe Telecom, Inc.)
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The new technology will also enable Globe to go over the circuitous approval process of deploying a fiber optic cable in the Philippines, which usually involves multiple permits from local government units (LGUs). The right of process can sometimes take years to obtain delaying fiber optic roll-out completion. “We can bring internet to more homes by deploying 5G compared to a typical fiber optic roll-out,” Cu said.
The 5G technology is expected to accelerate the adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) in the Philippines. Globe earlier announced that it is enabling its network by utilizing its spectrum assets, particularly the widely-contested 700-megahertz band.
Globe is currently piloting Narrow Band- Internet of Things (NB-IoT) technology in the country, while enhancing its mobile data services. Due to the telco’s inherent advantage of long reach, this spectrum is ideal to support NB-IoT services. Globe and China’s Huawei are collaborating in this journey, ensuring network readiness to support these services.
The Globe network has one of the largest deployment of Massive MIMO (MM) in Asia, as part of its strategic technology roadmap since 2016. MM is the fundamental radio access technology for 5G.
Globe has been spending over 31% of its annual total revenues to upgrade and expand its telecommunication and IT infrastructure. It has been ramping up its capital spend from P21.1 billion in 2012 to P36.7 billion in 2016 and P42.5 billionin 2017, in order to provide its subscribers of better broadband services. This year, Globe recently disclosed that it will further accelerate its capital expenditures to over P43.5 billion.
Back in November 2015, Globe extended its partnership with Huawei, signing a five-year contract involving the planning and design of a wireless broadband network, as well as the creation of a wireless innovation center. Huawei was also the technology partner of Globe when it implemented a $700-million network modernization program that began in 2011.
Huawei’s other “5G” fixed wireless trials using mmWave technology:
This past February, it was announced that Huawei and Canadian telco Telus have launched 5G wireless-to-the-home (WttH) trial service using a specially-designed 5G customer premise equipment (CPE) unit. The vendor said the trial is taking place in downtown Vancouver’s ‘5G Living Lab,’ a joint initiative between Huawei and Telus. Huawei said the use of a new 5G CPE is a new step towards the launch of consumer-oriented 5G-ready products to market. We wrote about that trial here.
Also in February, Deutsche Telekom and Huawei completed the world’s first multi-cell high millimeter waves field tests of 5G mobile communications with 73GHz mmWave technology (E-Band) under a large variety of real-world environments at the Deutsche Telekom campus in Bonn, Germany. In the comprehensive field tests, the 5G: haus partners addressed mmWave performance and propagation characteristics in both outdoor and indoor technology deployment.
Alex Choi, Senior Vice President, Technology Strategy & Innovation, Deutsche Telekom said: “Next generation services such as 3D immersive applications, mobile cloud service, gaming and social-networking applications require massive capacity and higher data rates. The use of higher range millimeter-wave spectrum bands is one of the enabling technologies to deliver the capacity increases and massive data rates required for 5G enhanced Mobile Broadband with massive data rates and ultra-fast experience. The verification of these features in our world’s first multi-cell 5G high mmWave field tests will point out the future direction for the industry’s ultra-high broadband experience for customers in both indoor scenarios as well as in extremely crowded areas. The successful trial result opens up a new door for applications and deployments of 5G mmWave.”
“This trial represents continued progress toward the launch of 5G, as we start to replicate both the in-home experience and network footprint we will see when 5G becomes commercially available in the near future,” said Ibrahim Gedeon, CTO at Telus. “Wireless 5G services will generate tremendous benefits for consumers, operators, governments and more through the use of advanced IoT devices, big data applications, smart city systems and other technologies of the future.”
For more information: A Peek into Huawei’s New WTTx CPE Technology
About Globe Telecom
Globe Telecom is a leading full service telecommunications company in the Philippines, serving the needs of consumers and businesses across an entire suite of products and services including mobile, fixed, broadband, data connections, internet and managed services. Its principals are Ayala Corporation and Singtel who are acknowledged industry leaders in the country and in the region. For more information, visit www.globe.com.ph. Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/talk2Globe and Facebook: http://facebook.com/GlobePH
For more information, please contact:
Yoly C. Crisanto
Head, Corporate Communications
Globe Telecom, Inc.
Email Address: [email protected]
Globe Press Room: newsroom.globe.com.ph/
Twitter: @talk2GLOBE │ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/globeph
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Another Huawei “5G” mmWave trial- this one in Singapore:
Singapore’s M1 has announced plans to embark on the first end-to-end “5G” live trials in the market in conjunction with Huawei. The companies plan to jointly showcase “5G” use cases including live 360-degree virtual reality content broadcasting by the end of the month. The demonstration at M1’s MiWorld building in Jurong will use Huawei 5G equipment operating on the 28-GHz millimeter wave frequency band.
Potential applications for live virtual, augmented and mixed reality broadcasts over “5G” networks include training, education, corporate communication, marketing campaigns, public events and virtual tourism.
In future classrooms, teachers could use 5G networks to stream 360-degree video to a classroom of students for a more immersive and interactive learning experience.
M1 and Huawei are planning a number of key initiatives over the next 18 months to validate 5G specifications as they are developed. The companies plan to conduct the first 3.5-GHz non-standalone standards compliant field trial in Southeast Asia by the end of the year, and a 28-GHz and 3.5-GHz standalone field trial by mid-2019.
“This live demo is a small but significant step in our journey towards next generation 5G mobile networks. With the advancement in 5G and media technologies, immersive communication experience will continue to be enhanced and this will definitely have a profound impact on the way we work, learn, live and play in a future smart city,” M1 CTO Denis Seek said.
“Singapore’s mobile networks are widely acknowledged as amongst the most advanced worldwide, and M1 is committed to staying at the forefront of 5G technology to ensure our consumers enjoy the best experience and latest smart applications. We look forward to working closely with Huawei to harness 5G for developing new innovative and demand-driven use cases and applications in Singapore.”
Huawei International CEO Lei Hui said the company would “continue to invest heavily in the research and development of 5G key technologies and products, cooperate with global industry partners, and promote the implementation of 5G commercial deployments and a healthy industry ecosystem worldwide.”
References:
https://www.telecomasia.net/content/m1-huawei-plan-live-5g-trials
https://www.zdnet.com/article/huawei-conducts-5g-trials-in-singapore-with-m1/
https://www.telecomasia.net/content/m1-huawei-complete-5g-mmwave-demo?src=related
Millimeter waves, also known as extremely high frequency (EHF), is a band of radio frequencies that is well suited for 5G networks. Compared to the frequencies below 5 GHz previously used by mobile devices, millimeter wave technology allows transmission on frequencies between 30 GHz and 300 GHz. These frequencies are called millimeter waves because they have wavelengths between 1 mm and 10 mm, while the wavelengths of the radio waves currently used by smartphones are mostly several dozen centimeters.
So far, only radar systems and satellites use millimeter waves. However, now some mobile network providers have also started using millimeter waves (for example, to transmit data between two fixed points, such as base stations). Nonetheless, the use of millimeter wave frequencies to connect mobile users to nearby base stations is an entirely new approach.
There are two ways to increase the speed of wireless data transmission: increase the spectrum utilization, or increase the spectrum bandwidth. Compared to the first approach, increasing the spectrum bandwidth is simpler and more direct. Without changing the spectrum utilization, increasing the available bandwidth several times over can increase data transmission speeds by a similar amount. The problem is that the commonly used frequencies below 5 GHz are already extremely crowded, so where can we find new spectrum resources? 5G’s use of millimeter waves uses the second of the two methods to increase transmission speeds.
Based on communication principles, the maximum signal bandwidth in wireless communication is about 5% of the carrier frequency. Therefore, the higher the carrier frequency, the greater the signal bandwidth. That’s why, among the millimeter-wave frequencies, 28 GHz and 60 GHz are the most promising frequencies for 5G. The 28 GHz band can provide an available spectrum bandwidth of up to 1 GHz, while each channel in the 60 GHz band can provide an available signal bandwidth of 2 GHz (a total available spectrum of 9 GHz divided between four channels).
Comparatively, the maximum carrier frequency of the 4G-LTE band, 2 GHz, provides an available spectrum bandwidth of only 100 MHz. Therefore, using millimeter wave frequencies can easily increase the spectrum bandwidth by a factor of 10, allowing for a massive increase in transmission speeds.
The use of millimeter waves has one major drawback. Millimeter waves are not capable of penetrating structures and other obstacles. Even leaves or rain can absorb these signals. This is also why 5G networks will have to adopt the small base station method to enhance traditional cell tower infrastructure.
Because millimeter waves have high frequencies and short wavelengths, the antennas used to receive them can be smaller, allowing for the construction of small base stations. We can predict that, in the future, 5G mobile communication will no longer depend on the construction of large-scale base stations, but rather many small base stations. This will allow 5G to cover peripheral areas not reached by large base stations.
Silicon Talks author Li Yirei said that the present 5G band plans adopted by major carriers use more traditional frequencies below 6 GHz to ensure signal coverage in open spaces, and use micro base stations with millimeter wave technology to provide ultra-fast data transmission indoors.
Using millimeter waves and other 5G technology, engineers hope that 5G networks will not only serve smartphone users, but also play a critical role in self-driving cars, VR, IoT, and other fields.
https://medium.com/@Alibaba_Cloud/understanding-how-millimeter-waves-power-the-5g-network-9d81514c9e46