Ericsson and Etisalat successfully conducted a 5G trial with outdoor mobility demonstrating 5G capabilities in a real-world environment over a live network, including tests on speed, latency and beam steering.

The 5G trial system is using 800MHz of spectrum in the 15GHz band, showing over 20 times greater performance than what is currently used in 4G networks. The trial achieved aggregate site through more than 24Gbps, with a latency less than half of what is seen in 4G networks.

Saeed Al Zarouni, SVP/Mobile Network, Etisalat said, "Today’s live demonstration provides a glimpse into the future and what mobile services will be like in the next few years. Today, we conducted the first live 5G trial with Ericsson and the first 5G trial with outdoor mobility in the region. 5G enhances existing services with additional capacity, higher speeds and lower latency while supporting several machine-type connections."

Petter J?rtby, Head of Etisalat Global Customer Unit at Ericsson Region Middle East said, "Today’s trial is a key milestone of the extensive collaborative efforts between Etisalat and Ericsson to ensure the UAE is ready for 5G. This next generation of technology will enable organisations to move into new markets and build new revenue streams with radically new business models and use cases, including Internet of Things, IoT, applications."

The trial was a part of the first Ericsson and Etisalat Technology Summit. The event also included workshops and discussions, where Ericsson presented its latest technology trends and demonstrations. The event’s sessions and demos touched upon different areas covering 5G, IoT, Network Functions Virtualisation, NFV, Cloud and digital transformation