Huawei expects 5G services to be ready next year, believing that the number of its users worldwide will reach 500 million within three years of its launch.
Daily News Egypt interviewed Huawei’s Chief Strategy Officer of Wireless Product Line, Tide Xu, to talk about their 5G investment plans, sales, and their application with Telecom Egypt in the World Radio-communication Conference (WRC) 2019.
What is the global 5G commercial progress in general?
The 5G gears up, it is expected that the 5G end-to-end (E2E) ecosystem will get fully mature in 2020. The number of global 5G subscribers is predicted to reach up to 500 million within three years.
Globally, by the end of September 2019, there will be 40 5G networks in commercial use, of which 27 networks are deployed by Huawei.
What is the global 5G primary spectrum, and how does it make progress globally?
Worldwide, in total, 35 countries have recently completed 5G-suitable allocations or licensing procedures in at least one spectrum band by the end of September 2019. Over 70 countries will have 5G spectrum ready by the end of 2020.
What is Huawei’s 5G research and development (R&D) investment and development plan with regards to capital and human resources investment?
Huawei has invested $4bn in 5G technology research and product development from 2009 to 2019.
In terms of standards and patents, Huawei has submitted a total of 21,000 proposals to the third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), a standard organisation for mobile telephony.
According to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute’s (ETSI) statistics, Huawei has 2570 families of 5G basic patents, accounting for more than 20% of the total, and ranking first among all vendors.
Huawei will continue to increase its investments in 5G. Currently, more than 10,000 employees are working on 5G networks (excluding terminals) for R&D.
Huawei’s 5G R&D aims to improve product quality, continuously optimize network performance, reduce costs per bit, and decrease base station energy consumption.
How are Huawei’s 5G sales performing globally?
Huawei’s E2E 5G products and solutions speed up worldwide 5G commercial progress. By September, Huawei has won 60 5G commercial contracts, and has completed more than 400,000 5G shipments. The number continues to grow every day.
Can you tell us more about Huawei’s 5G application with Telecom Egypt in the WRC 2019?
Huawei successfully demonstrated with Telecom Egypt a 5G application through a 5G-enabled 360 camera and Virtual Reality (VR) advanced application in WRC 2019. The demonstration was based on high resolution 360-degree camera that transmits video to VR headsets to enable the viewers to immerse in the experience. Huawei 5G SA E2E Platform and TE fibre optics were used to transmit the video feeds from the real time cameras to the VR headsets. The demonstration was conducted on 3.5 gigahertz (GHz) spectrum with 100 MHz carrier. A download throughput of three gigabits per second (Gbps) could be achieved on a single cell with multiple users and for single user a download speed of 1.5Gbps and upload speed of 200 megabits per second (Mbps) was achieved through a single device.
The demonstration is in line with Egypt’s information and communications technology (ICT) 2030 strategy which focuses on sustainable development and enhancing Egyptian’s life quality. The application demonstrated can be applied for distinctive VR touristic experience and flexible security purposes.
