Qualcomm, Etisalat sign deal to accelerate 5G deployment
Testing and trial will start in 2018
Barcelona: Qualcomm Technologies signed a deal with etisalat on Tuesday to accelerate the telecom’s “5G” deployments in 2019
The chip maker has been highlight its update to its 5G modem at the Mobile World Congress this week. The San Diego-based company and is making a coordinated effort with more than 20 companies to support a partnership project, called “Non-Standalone 5G New Radio,” which aims to utilise the existing technology and allow network operators and hardware vendors to start monetising 5G by 2019. Full scale 5G deployments are not expected until 2020.
Intel joined Qualcomm in supporting the intermediate standard, as has AT&T, Sprint, Ericsson, NTT DoCoMo, SK Telecom, Vodafone, British Telecom, Telstra, Korea Telecom, LG Uplus, KDDI, LG Electronics, Telia Company, Swisscom, TIM, Etisalat Group, Huawei, Vivo, ZTE and Deutsche Telekom, Verizon Wireless, Nokia and the Chinese wireless carriers.
Qualcomm said the companies involved in the partnership will start a trial phase of the technology on March 6 in Dubrovnik, Croatia.
