MATERA, Italy—Italian mobile operator TIM, Italian broadband provider Fastweb and manufacturer Huawei have announced the activation of the first 5G antenna system in the city of Matera as part of a 5G trial being promoted by the Italian government, reports rcrwireless.com.
The Italian cities of Bari and Matera will be among the first areas in the world to be covered by the new generation of mobile technology. Use of 3.7-3.8 GHz frequency bands, made available by the Ministry of Economic Development, will facilitate project’s network development plan. 75 percent coverage of the two cities’ is planned for by the end of this year.
Huawei recently announced the completion of the first 5G trial in the city of Turin, Italy, also in partnership with TIM and Fastweb. A net throughput of more than 3 Gbps has been achieved using 100 megahertz of spectrum, according to Huawei. The 5G trial also reached a spectral efficiency of 30 bits/second/hertz, which is about seven times higher than advanced 4G technology, according to the same article.
Vodafone is also engaged in 5G trials in Italy. In December last year, the telco launched its project to test 5G technologies via the 3.6-3.8 GHz band in the city of Milan. The company said the network will cover 80 percent of the city and surrounding metropolitan areas by the end of next year and 100 percent by 2019. Download speeds of 2.7 Gbps and a latency of just over a millisecond were reported in the first live end-to-end 5G data connection in Italy.
