MTN, Huawei trial 5G fixed-wireless broadband

MTN and Huawei have launched what they claim is ‘Africa’s first field trial of 5G mobile broadband’. The field trial demonstrated a 5G fixed-wireless access use case with Huawei’s 5G 28GHz millimetre-wave technology in a ‘real-world’ environment in Pretoria. It achieved down/upload speeds of 520Mbps/77Mbps. MTN South Africa’s CTO Giovanni Chiarelli said: ‘The use of millimetre-wave spectrum bands is one of the key 5G enabling technologies to deliver the required capacity and massive data rates required for 5G’s use cases … The field trial will pave the way for a fixed-wireless access solution that is capable of replacing conventional fixed-access technologies such as fibre.’