5G speed records continue to be broken, this time by Etisalat

Etisalat have announced that they have attained the current fastest speeds attained on a 5G network, reaching speeds of 9.1 Gpbs. 

 

According to their press release, this was achieved using a combination of 2.6 GHz, 3.5Ghz, and 26 GHz spectrum. Beyond this, however, details are slim as to the conditions in which this milestone was achieved. We do not know, for example, if this was achieved in a commercial network.

 

“We are pleased to announce that Etisalat UAE has achieved unprecedented 9.1 Gbps 5G network speed. This 5G ultra-wideband game-changing download speed is the fastest in the world. We at Etisalat always strive to meet the ever-increasing bandwidth demand from diverse needs of customers, businesses, automation, and gaming,” said Saeed Al Zarouni, Etisalat’s SVP mobile networks.

 

There have been a number of milestone 5G speed breakthroughs this year, the most recent of which being announced by Nokia, Qualcomm, and Elisa last month, where the trio managed speeds of 8 Gbps. In this case, the speeds were achieved using two devices, which each individually achieved  data rates of 4Gbps using 800MHz of mmWave spectrum in the 26GHz band.

 

Elisa noted it planed to launch consumer mmWave next year.

 

It should be noted that these speed records can be quite deceptive. Given the fairly limited information typically available when these records are announced, it can be difficult to really compare these two claims to the 5G speed record. Nonetheless, it is clear that 5G technology continues to improve rapidly in numerous markets, with many players fighting to be at its cutting edge.