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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

5G is just round the corner

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MUSCAT, April 25 - In the era of wireless connectivity Omantel is showcasing 5G at Comex 2018. The fifth generation mobile technology could change life further in the digital age. 5G is expected to play a major role in the Internet of Things (IoT). Four months ago, Omantel brought the standards that had been approved in December 2017 to Oman. “The small customer-premises equipment, CPE, in the world is here now as you can see. The plan is for it to be there for mobile by 2019. The speed is very high. We are expecting from two to four gigabits. Four giga is considered to be very high.


“Here we are demonstrating through the streaming of 4K content, which requires 25 MBps. With that we can run 130 televisions concurrently or even 700 TVs at the same time because the speed is very high.” “Omantel has 15,000 km of fibre optic coverage so the infrastructure is ready and in place for unforeseen future technologies,” said Dr Ali al Hashmi, Senior Manager for Network Design, Omantel. The commercialisation of 5G still has challenges in Oman. “The challenge is because CPE is still not commercially launched. We expect it to be launched by the third quarter of 2018. At that point it would mainly be for industries because 5G has one of the good features of low latency and easy response. It is ideal for industries such as medical and logistics. The response time is very low.”


In latency, international experts are talking in terms of 1 ms (milliseconds). While there are talks that wireless transmission speeds can be at 1 Tbps (terabite per second), as wireless technology users are looking at data transfer speed as well as download. While in trials 5G has shown fascinating results it would take slightly longer for mobile users to experience the wonders of 5G. The 5G for mobile phones will be available slightly later. “For mobile phones 5G will be available by the middle of 2019. For the users 5G can provide higher experience and higher capacity,” said Michael Chenlei, Senior Wireless Product Manager, Huawei, speaking to the Observer at Comex 2018.


At Mobile World Congress held in Spain in February 2018, Huawei Consumer Business Group (CBG), launched its HUAWEI 5G customer-premises equipment (CPE), the world’s first commercial terminal device supporting the globally recognised 3GPP telecommunication standard for 5G and Omantel is showcasing it at Comex 2018.


Lakshmi Kothaneth


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