Thu, Oct 13, 2016 03:00 EST

Today, Telia Company and Ericsson have brought 5G technology one step closer to deployment, after conducting outdoor tests on the first 5G trial system in Europe. This is an important step towards the companies’ joint goal of letting Telia Company’s customers in Stockholm and Tallinn experience 5G services already in 2018.

The trial in Kista, Sweden demonstrated 5G capabilities in a real world environment over a live network and included tests on speed and latency. The system used 800 MHz of spectrum in the 15 GHz band. During the test peak rates of 15 gigabits per user, and a latency below 3 milliseconds where achieved. This is more than 40 times faster than the current maximum speeds achievable on 4G.

This marks an important milestone in our companies’ joint roadmap for 5G in Sweden and Estonia announced in January, with the goal to let Telia customers in Stockholm and Tallinn experience 5G services already in 2018.

“This is a great achievement and stepping stone towards taking 5G to our customers in Sweden and Estonia 2018. The standardization and development of 5G has just started. Our knowledge and learnings from testing in a real outdoor environment will be crucial to understand and develop the 5G technology and networks needed to meet our customers’ future requirements on our services in a digitalized society,” says Mats Svärdh, Head of Networks & IT Infrastructure, Global Services & Operations, Telia Company.

Higher speed and lower latency brought by 5G enhance existing services and open up for completely new use cases, service scenarios and innovations, creating new eco-systems and business opportunities, including communication and Internet of Things (IoT) services for both consumers and for the digitalization of industries. An important aspect of the 5G technology is also better network performance in terms of capacity, coverage and power consumption.

“Today marks an important step on our joint 5G roadmap for Sweden and Estonia. Our 5G roadmap will incrementally introduce IoT technologies and 5G concepts that will enhance end user experience and business potential for enterprises and society. Telia and Ericsson offer consumers and businesses to stay ahead with 5G-like services introductions. We are continuously creating new opportunities leveraging the promise of IoT and 5G and we’ll all experience it step by step,” says Peter Laurin, Head of Region Northern Europe & Central Asia, Ericsson.

While major deployment of 5G networks is not expected until 2020, development of pre-commercial products, testing and spectrum is ongoing. Telia Company and Ericsson’s partnership is at the forefront of these developments in Europe and these early 5G trials will also help drive the future global standards.