Ireland’s first successful live demonstration of pre-standard 5G technology was performed yesterday by Vodafone.
The special event took place at the Douglas Hyde Gallery at Trinity College, in partnership with Ericsson.
The firms achieved 15 Gigabit per second speeds with Vodafone saying it plans to introduce 5G into the market in the next 24 months.
The event showcased real-life customer applications ranging from remote experts and augmented reality to high speed, low latency, immersive gaming.
5G technology allows a vast array of services delivered in a super-fast and efficient manner simultaneously.
Some of the use cases that 5G will gradually enable over time include:
– driving super-high speed broadband and media: supporting increasing traffic demands from video services and interactive applications e.g. 4K streaming, video analytics and holograms;
– connecting massive numbers of devices: the exponential growth of connected IoT devices is driving more and more use cases, such as smart vehicles (from asset tracking and remote monitoring to Vehicle to Everything), with the next generation network needing to provide a reliable response to billions of devices;
– providing faster, secure, reliable and robust connectivity which is essential to delivering mission-critical services such as real-time video surveillance, self-driving cars, eHealth remote surgery and remote patient monitoring; and
– providing ultra-low latency for human-machine interaction: supporting real-time response requirements for allowing virtual reality, augmented reality and real-time control of robotics.
The launch event in Dublin showcased what customers and businesses can expect from 5G through demonstration of future technology.
Madalina Suceveanu, Chief Technology Officer, Vodafone Ireland said:
“This first successful trial of pre-standard 5G is an essential step forward in achieving our vision of a Gigabit Society for Ireland.
“As our network evolves toward 5G it will become even faster and more resilient, will have significantly lower latency, and will allow a huge number of devices to connect simultaneously.
“Vodafone Ireland’s path to 5G will build on the great foundation of our advanced 4G network and will enhance and complement our recently launched NB-IoT network that will support the growth of the Internet of Things.
“We are committed to continuing to prioritise our network investment across both advanced 4G and 5G platforms, ensuring all our customers will have seamless connectivity to suit their individual digital needs as well as enabling businesses to be more agile.”
John Griffin, Managing Director of Ericsson Ireland:
“We’re proud to be working with Vodafone to showcase pre-standard 5G technology in Ireland for the first time.
“5G, with its many and new attributes, will offer a raft of benefits both for consumers and businesses, that will enhance lives and bring to life new and exciting use cases for industries and society.
“Through these trials, Vodafone can evaluate 5G technology and its opportunities to provide better services to consumers and businesses prior to the commercial deployment of 5G. In addition, these trials will provide us with insights about what use cases will benefit from 5G in the future.”
