Faroese Telecom, the incumbent operator on the Faroe Islands, and Ericsson have announced a record 5G Downlink speeds of 6 Gbps on the millimeter (mmWave) wave spectrum. Faroese Telecom and Ericsson conducted a speed test on a live network and achieved this peak download speed, the fastest measured in a live network in Europe to date. In addition, Faroese Telecom wants to show the world how 5G can be deployed widely within a limited time.
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Faroese Telecom 5G Network
First started deploying 5G across the Faroe Islands in 2022, Faroese Telecom's Radio access network (RAN) has been built to achieve 100% geographic coverage in terms of total landmass and sea coverage that spans up to 120 km in all directions. Since 2021, Ericsson has been the sole provider of 5G RAN and 5G Core for Faroese Telecom, including fully modernising the existing 4G Network.
5G mmWave Speed Test Trial
The 5G Non-Standalone data speeds were achieved on a commercial mobile network using Ericsson's AIR 5322 and Baseband 6648. Spectrum: 800MHz of 5G mmWave spectrum in the n258 band and 40 MHz of 4G Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) spectrum are aggregated to record a downlink speed of 5.9 Gbps using 256QAM modulation. The test also recorded a 1.6 Gbps uplink speed by aggregating multiple carriers and selecting an optimised Time Division Duplex (TDD) pattern.
Faroe Islands
The Faroe Islands, located in the North Atlantic Ocean, is a self-governing territory that belongs to the Kingdom of Denmark. The archipelago has a land area of 1,400 square kilometers, a sea area of 300,000 square kilometers, and a population of 54,000. The 18 islands are mainly interconnected through bridges, subsea tunnels, and ferries.
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According to the statement, Ericsson's mmWave technology will be deployed across all of the self-governing 18 islands of the nation, delivering high capacity and multi-gigabit, mobile broadband speeds in suburban and rural areas.
Faroese Telecom wants to cover all the islands with Giga speeds, including in cities as well as in small villages, on roads, in tunnels, on mountaintops and even out to sea so that every person located on 18 islands is connected with high-speed 5G connectivity.
With these milestones, Faroese Telecom is showing the world that Rocky volcanic islands and changing weather are not stopping them from bringing the latest 5G technology to the islands.
Faroese Telecom provides products and services within mobile, broadband, fixed line, subsea cables, and TV. The telco has delivered telecom solutions for over 117 years to the people of the region.