5G networks in the telecom industry worldwide will roll out sooner rather than later, and will transform society, Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Enterprise, said.

Speaking at a keynote session at the Mobile World Congress 2018, Mittal, who is Chairman of GSMA, said, “The arrival of 5G is very significant as it will define how society lived pre-5G and how society lives post-5G.”

“With the arrival of 5G, things which are now in the realm of science fiction will become reality,” he said.

5G trial

Mittal’s company Airtel said last week it has successfully conducted India’s first 5G network trial under a test set-up with Chinese telecom vendor Huawei.

The trial was conducted at Airtel’s Network Experience Centre in Manesar (Haryana). The set-up included 5G radio access network (RAN) operating on 3.5 GHz band, 5G Core and 50GE Network Slicing router, Huawei said in a statement.

“During the test trial, a user throughput of more than 3 Gbps was achieved using the set-up. This is the highest measured throughput for a mobile network in 3.5 GHz band with 100MHz bandwidth and end-to-end network latency of approximately 1 msec,” the company had said.

In addition to Airtel, global players like Vodafone are also conducting such tests worldwide. For instance, Vodafone is conducting similar tests in Milan, Italy, with a consortium of 38 companies, Vittorio Collao, Global CEO of Vodafone, said.

Addressing a media round-table, Collao said the next five years would be exciting and the company is “doing crazy things” — such as working on drones and connected cars.

“There are a wide range of projects...today we don’t even know,” he said.

Collao said not only telecom operators, but equipment vendors such as Ericsson, Huawei and many others will also fight for the projects in 5G.

“It will be a worldwide battle between Ericsson, Huawei... and the ones who do better will survive,” he said.

Asked on how soon 5G can be deployed in India by Vodafone, Collao added that the company will deploy as soon as the government permits and there are spectrum available in the country.

The writer is in Barcelona to cover

the Mobile World Congress at the invitation of Huawei India