News
Huawei’s rotating CEO urged operators to be flexible in their choice of spectrum to streamline the 5G rollout process
The era of 5G is upon us, with network technology and architecture "ready to go", according to Huawei’s rotating chairman Ken Hu
Speaking at the Huawei World Mobile Broadband Forum in London this week, Hu said that the time for planning and preparation was coming to an end, as mobile network operators around the world look to begin their 5G rollout campaigns.
"5G is ready to go now. In every regard, it is arriving much quicker than any of us could have anticipated," he said.
"5G will start a technology revolution. It will bring new power to all ICT technologies and will trigger sweeping changes in business. It will present new opportunities, the likes of which we have never seen."
Despite a turbulent twelve months that has seen it excluded from 5G rollout programmes in the US and Australia, Huawei is still positioning itself as a global leader for 5G.
In 2018 alone, Huawei shipped over 10,000 5G base stations to customers in Europe, the Middle East and South Korea, suggesting that the company’s exponential growth will continue well into the 5G era and beyond.
With Huawei’s 5G network architecture costing around 20 per cent less than that of its rivals in Europe, the Chinese tech giant is helping to speed up the 5G rollout process, removing significant cost barriers.
"The cost of deploying 5G is coming down and we expect that to translate into 5G handsets too. We expect that more affordable 5G handsets will start to make their way onto the market by mid 2019," he said.
Hu also called on network operators to be flexible with their choice of spectrum, to prevent bottlenecking in the initail rollout period.
"Operators don’t need to focus solely on the C-Band spectrum. 2.3GHz and 2.6GHz spectrum can also be used in the early stages of 5G rollout," he said.
Also in the news:
Huawei has Samsung in its sights as it aims for global smartphone top spot
Huawei acieves download speeds of 2.7Gbps in China’s ‘5G City’
Huawei: Europe is the most open and competitive market in which we operate
