NEW DELHI: Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL) said that it achieved peak speed in excess of 3.7 Gbps on the mmWave spectrum band, in Pune city. The telecom operator also recorded peak download speeds of up to 1.5 Gbps in 3.5 Ghz band 5G trial network, in Gandhinagar and Pune city.
The announcement follows Airtel’s recent claims that it conducted cloud gaming sessions successfully using the mid-band spectrum in Manesar.
Vodafone Idea is conducting 5G trials on government allocated 5G spectrum in the cities of Pune (Maharashtra) and Gandhinagar (Gujarat), along with its technology vendors such as Ericsson and Nokia. The telco is also preparing for virtualised networks and is currently doing OpenRAN trials to leverage the next-generation technology for 5G services in future.
In Pune city, Vodafone Idea has deployed its 5G trial in a lab setup of an end-to-end captive network of Cloud Core, new generation Transport and Radio Access Network. In this trial, Vi has achieved peak speed in excess of 3.7 Gbps with very low latency on the mmWave spectrum band. These speeds were achieved with state-of-the-art equipment in 5G Non-Standalone network architecture and using NR Radios.
The telco has been allocated mmWave high bands like 26 GHz by the DoT, along with the traditional 3.5 GHz spectrum band, for 5G network trials. mmWave delivers wide spectrum and capacity over the shortest distances for 5G, delivering lower latencies.
Vi has also achieved peak download speeds of up to 1.5 Gbps in 3.5 Ghz band 5G trial network, with its OEM partners in Gandhinagar and Pune city.
Jagbir Singh, CTO, Vodafone Idea Limited, said, “We are pleased with the speed and latency results in the initial stages of the 5G trials on the Govt allocated 5G spectrum bands. Having established a robust 4G network pan-India, delivering fastest 4G speeds and a 5G-ready network, we are now testing the NextGen 5G technology to be able to bring a truly digital experience for enterprises and consumers in India, in the future.”
High speed and low latency characteristics of the 5G network has many capabilities such as improved surveillance and video streaming/broadcast; AR/VR for enhanced online gaming experience; and will enable the evolution of the 5G smart factory. Industry 4.0 and 5G smart city will help accelerate 5G deployment and usher in a promising new era of technology advancement in the country.
Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio have also been conducting various 5G trials using different bands across the country.
Reliance Jio is running 5G trials in Navi Mumbai and recently achieved end-to-end network slicing on its indigenous 5G standalone core. Network slicing enables innovative use cases in the cloud and private 5G deployments at the edge. The telco had completed its cloud gaming trial in a lab set-up earlier this year.
