Australia’s Optus has announced that it has successfully completed a 5G network trial in partnership with Chinese vendor Huawei Technologies. In a press release the operator claimed to have achieved ‘the fastest speeds observed of a single user transmission over 5G in Australia so far’; having carried out the tests in Sydney, these were said to have reached a single user transmission rate of 35Gbps over the 73GHz band. Optus noted that the objective of the trial was to explore spectrum efficiency at millimetre wave frequencies (above 30GHz), which are said to be key to realising the promise of 5G networks. The trial was a localised initiative as part of the 5G collaboration Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Optus’ parent company Singtel and Huawei, and utilised technologies such as mm wave and Polar code.
Dennis Wong, acting Managing Director at Optus Networks, said: ‘Australia is well positioned to take a pioneering role in the development of 5G technologies globally. We believe Optus, as one of the Australasia’s leading telecommunications and entertainment providers has the partnerships and the expertise to take a leadership position … The possibilities with 5G are endless. Through our strategic partnership with Huawei we are undertaking the necessary preparation, testing and trials to tackle the 5G opportunity head on.’