Telenor’s ‘next-generation’ 5G pilot will be carried out by Telenor Norway in partnership with Ericsson and complement its existing 5G pilot in Kongsberg.
Five Norwegian families are involved in the Kongsberg trial to test broadband and TV over a 5G network. It is the first real-life pilot of the technology in Scandinavia.
The new pilot will kick off in the second half of 2019 and will run until 2020, when Telenor plans to launch its commercial 5G network to Norwegian customers. Telenor says the pilot is in the planning stage and its location and specific use cases will be announced at a later stage.
Experimentation
Ruza Sabanovic, Chief Technology Officer for Telenor Group, said, “It’s important for Telenor to continuously expand our knowledge and experience through actively testing 5G technology together with suppliers. Through experimenting, we also assess the 5G technological requirements as well as how we and Telenor’s customers can take advantage of the vast opportunities the 5G technology brings. Together with Ericsson, we will experiment with ways to design the 5G network, understand the vendor capabilities and use of the technology, and test new use cases.
Bjørn Ivar Moen, acting CEO, Telenor Norway, added, “We have not yet chosen our vendor for 5G. Both the existing pilot in Kongsberg and our newest pilot activity will enable us to better evaluate which technological, functional and commercial solutions are optimal for our future 5G network and for our customers.”
Telenor recently entered into an agreement with Ericsson and Nokia, who together will deliver a modernisation of the core mobile networks in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, which will support the 5G radio access network.