Qualcomm Technologies, Nokia and telecom operator Elisa today announced that they have achieved 8 Gbps speeds on a commercial 5G network in Finland. It is the first time we are seeing 8 Gbps speeds on a 5G network with two 5G mmWave devices connected simultaneously. The three vendors conducted this test at Elisa's store in Helsinki, Finland. Qualcomm Technologies said that new network would support a range of new low-latency, high-bandwidth services, such as high-speed video downloads, Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) applications. The service is expected to be implemented in 2021 in Finland.
How Nokia, Elisa and Qualcomm Achieved 8 Gbps Speeds on 5G Network
In a press statement, Qualcomm Technologies said the milestone was achieved by using Nokia's 5G mmWave technology and Qualcomm's own 5G smartphone test device over Elisa's commercial 5G network. These are the world's fastest 5G speeds recording till date. Such speeds will enable opportunities in various sectors like VR/AR, latency-sensitive enterprise services and more. Customers will be able to download 4K video content or massive games in a matter of seconds. "The move supports Elisa’s pioneering efforts to digitise Finnish society as a global leader in 5G services," the release added.
Furthermore, Qualcomm says the base station utilised two Nokia AirScale radios, each using 800 MHz of commercial millimetre wave 5G spectrum at 26 GHz. These provided connectivity to two 5G smartphone form factor test devices powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 5G Modem-RF System featuring second-generation Qualcomm QTM525 mmWave antenna modules, with each device reaching 4 Gbps peak speeds from the base station.
Telecom operator Elisa says reaching 8 Gbps on a 5G network is a natural step, but it wants to explore the possibilities offered by 5G. The fastest 5G speed recorded so far was 4.7 Gbps by Nokia in Finland itself. So the same company working with Qualcomm and Elisa delivered the fastest 5G network speeds of 8 Gbps ever.