MTS and Ericsson this week became the second pair of companies to team up and state their aim to show off 5G during 2018’s football World Cup in Russia.
The Russian mobile operator and Swedish kit maker signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that covers research into several promisi ng technologies and establishes a timetable for conducting various demonstrations and pilot projects.
"While requirements for the new communication standard are in the development stage, it is important for our company to be closely involved in this process, which led to signing the agreement with Ericsson," said Andrey Ushatskiy, MTS’s chief technology and information officer, in a statement on Monday.
"Next year, we will start to test our key vendor’s developments through a series of pilot projects on the MTS network, in order for both of us to have a complete understanding of the performance of the solutions in our 5G networks," he said.
In 2016, MTS and Ericsson plan to test LTE-unlicensed (LTE-U) and licensed-assisted access (LAA). They will also test Ericsson’s ‘Lean Carrier Technology’, which is designed to improve network performance by optimising signalling traffic between cell sites, eliminate interference, and simplify network planning. MTS and Ericsson also plan to test a range of Internet of Things (IoT) technology.
In 2017, MTS and Ericsson plan to deploy pilot 5G solutions that use 15-GHz spectrum; and in 2018 they plan to construct a test network that will demonstrate 5G during the World Cup.
The MoU also covers dialogue between Ericsson, MTS and Russian regulators about allocating spectrum for 5G services.
"This project marks an important milestone and brings the development of the most innovative technologies to Russia," said Jeff Travers, head of customer unit MTS at Ericsson. "5G will revolutionise user experiences in mobile technology during the FIFA World Cup in 2018."
At this rate, Russia will boast two ‘5G’ networks at the World Cup.
In November 2014, MegFon and Huawei signed an MoU of their own that will see the companies work together to roll out a 5G network also in time for 2018’s World Cup.
It is worth remembering though that the ITU is not expected to formally adopt a 5G standard until 2020, so any networks that go live in 2018 will technically be pre-standard 5G networks.
