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Russian operator uses 2 GHz of 70-GHz spectrum; talks up next year’s World Cup.
MegaFon Huawei have laid claim to the fastest mobile data connection ever seen in Russia, after reaching more than 35 Gbps in a 5G demonstration.
At a trade show in St Petersburg last week, the operator and vendor showed off a 5G TDD base station that used 2 GHz of 70-GHz E-band spectrum to achieve the blisteringly high throughput.
"As part of our development programme we are creating the technological base for 5G so we can be the first in Russia to launch a commercial network using this technology and again astonish our subscribers with the fastest speeds," said Alexander Bashmakov, CTO of MegaFon, in a statement last Thursday.
Russia is due to host football’s World Cup next year, and, while 5G is not expected to be standardised until 2020, the host nation is keen to use the event to showcase its progress in next-generation mobile technology.
"This will be the fastest tournament in history," declared MegaFon CEO Sergey Soldatenkov. "Everyone who is in Moscow and St Petersburg during the championship will have the opportunity to experience the emotions of this event in an entirely new way thanks to fast Internet from MegaFon."
