Huawei announced they have launched an end-to-end user trial for “Wireless to the Home” (WTTx) 5G service using a specially-designed 5G CPE (Customer Premise Equipment) unit. The trial is taking place in downtown Vancouver’s “5G Living Lab,” a co-venture with TELUS, Canada’s fastest growing telecommunications company. It is compliant with the global 5G 3GPP standard and is believed to be the first trial of its kind in North America, and among the first globally.
“This trial represents continued progress toward the launch of 5G, as we start to replicate both the in-home experience and network footprint we will see when 5G becomes commercially available in the near future,” said Ibrahim Gedeon, CTO at TELUS. “Wireless 5G services will generate tremendous benefits for consumers, operators, governments and more through the use of advanced IoT devices, big data applications, smart city systems and other technologies of the future.”
For Huawei, the use of a new 5G CPE (Customer Premise Equipment) represents another milestone in bringing consumer-oriented 5G-ready products to market.
The current trial is being conducted in the homes of Vancouver-based TELUS employees and is based on the successful 5G 3GPP mmWave tests that TELUS and Huawei conducted in June 2017. The 5G wireless trial system provides users with a fibre-like experience with their home network.
In addition to the unique 5G in-home equipment, the network utilizes the 5G gNodeB and related elements built as part of the TELUS/Huawei 5G Living Lab. The trial system operates on the 28GHz mmwave band with 800 MHz of bandwidth and includes many 3GPP key technologies, such as Massive MIMO, F-OFDM, and Polar Code.
5G-capable wireless solutions have the potential to complement fibre to the home (FTTx) solutions by providing an alternative “last-mile” solution consumer and business services. In both urban and suburban regions, the ability to deploy 5G wireless solutions will help reduce costs for operators and increase accessibility of 5G for end customers. 5G networking equipment also requires a much smaller footprint than traditional mobile networks, reducing requirements for government approvals of new tower locations.
The first trials were initiated on December 4th, 2017 and the initial application has successfully achieved single-user download speeds of over 2 Gbps.
“mmWave technology will be an important tool in ensuring widespread deployment of 5G technology in Canada. Huawei’s 5G solutions and terminals will enable 5G coverage over a neighbourhood or small community cost effectively, while providing more convenient and high-speed home broadband Internet access services.” said Dr. Wen Tong, Huawei Fellow, and CTO Huawei Wireless, “This friendly user trial will drive the global 3GPP unified 5G standard and build a solid foundation for the 5G early commercialization.”
