Telia Company has begun exploring how future 5G technologies can improve teaching with a project in partnership with the City of Helsinki.
The two organisations are initially seeing how virtual and augmented reality can be used as teaching aids.
Trials are underway at the Arabia Elementary School in the Finnish capital and the technology will be used in mathematics and design classes.
Jari Collin, Chief Technology Officer, Telia Finland, said: “5G is bringing an unprecedented transition to a range of business practices. We want to develop the services of the future together with our customers and partners; the City of Helsinki’s open-mindedness serves as an example to others.
“We aim to introduce 5G connections in the first schools next year. When educational technology requirements are taken into account in the construction phase of a school, the teachers and pupils can focus on the more fundamental issue of developing teaching content.”
Telia is one of Europe’s more ambitious operators with plans to launch an early version of 5G commercially next year.
[Read more: Telia taps Ericsson, Intel for Tallinn 5G trials]
Meanwhile, Ericsson plans to open a 5G-related design centre in the US city of Austin, Texas.
The Swedish vendor said it wanted to target nearby silicon processor manufacturers and start-ups with a target of employing 80 designers by the middle of next year.
Staff will work on designing application specific integrated circuits (ASIC), which are 100 times faster, more cost-efficient and consumer less power than a processor in a standard computer.
Sinisa Krajnovic, Head of Development Unit Networks, Ericsson, said: “We are strengthening our radio design capability in one of the world’s 5G pioneer markets. We’ll be up and running with our first group of designers in Austin by the end of 2017.
“Along with our ASIC design teams in Sweden and China, we’ll be making faster, better and greener 5G products to bring into the Ericsson portfolio by 2019.”