Ericsson and Magyar Telekom have demonstrated cellular radio equipment built on the pre-standard 5G New Radio (NR) 3GPP recommendations. The demo in Budapest used the 15GHz frequency band with 800MHz bandwidth, achieving downlink speeds of 22Gbps. Gabor Ery, Country Manager for Ericsson Hungary, said: ‘This demonstration is a real milestone for our partnership with Magyar Telekom. This is the first time a 5G radio link has been established in Hungary, and this implementation is helping to ensure that Magyar Telekom is well prepared to take full advantage of the potential of 5G.’
Magyar Telekom and Ericsson, along with Hungarian government bodies, universities, other network equipment vendors and independent corporations, are part of the 5G Coalition in Hungary with the collective goal to pave the way for the successful introduction of 5G. While major deployment of 5G networks is not expected until 2020, development of pre-commercial products, testing and spectrum is ongoing.
Kim Kyllesbech Larsen, CTO, Magyar Telekom, added: ‘5G opens up new opportunities … to offer services connected with IoT and robotics for different sectors like the car industry, health or public service, agriculture, etc. The 5G Coalition tasks to make Hungary one of the European hubs for 5G tests and developments, and our joint demonstration with Ericsson Hungary is a good example of the collaboration needed to achieve our goals concerning 5G.’