MegaFon is claiming an all-time mobile speed record for Russia, hitting 35GBps in trials with Huawei.
The trial was held in St Petersburg to coincide with the city’s International Economic Forum. A bandwith of 2Ghz was used in the 70GHz E-band.
MegaFon Chief Technology Officer Alexander Bashmakov, said: “In 2008, MegaFon was the first Russian operator to launch a commercial 3G UMTS network. In 2012, the company was the first major operator in the country to roll out a LTE network and, in 2014, was the first to launch an LTE Advanced network, which at the time became the fastest commercial mobile network in the world. The company offers the fastest mobile internet access in Russia.
“Today MegaFon subscribers have access to speeds of up to 300MBps and up to 450MBps in Moscow. Right now as part of our development program we are creating the technological base for 5G so we can be the first in Russia to launch a commercial network using this technology and again astonish our subscribers with the fastest speeds.”
MegaFon CEO Serget Soldatenkov added the trial was a further step in the operator’s plans to roll out 5G in time for next year’s World Cup, which will be held in Russia.
The operator will be demonstrating driverless cars and virtual reality as two use cases of 5G at the Forum. The demonstration will show how cars can use sensors to react to changes in road conditions, cross junctions and overtake.
Meanwhile, MegaFon has agreed to work on IoT projects and increase mobile coverage with Russian Railways.
In a short statement, the operator said it wanted to use smart technologies to automatically collect information about parts of the railway infrastructure.
MegaFon COO Anna Serebryanikova said: “MegaFon has the technology and experience to support Russian Railways’ IT development strategy. For example, we can offer solutions for studying and optimizing passenger traffic, monitoring wear and proactive analytics using big data analysis.
“We will continue to develop Wi-Fi internet access on Sapsan high speed trains and to offer subscribers access to the train’s information and entertainment system.”