Maxis starts first 5G live trial in Malaysia

• Evolving its network infrastructure to support 5G gigabit speeds
• Trials will be conducted over six months in Cyberjaya

FOLLOWING its recent announcement to accelerate 5G in Malaysia in collaboration with Huawei, Maxis commenced the first 5G live trials in the country earlier this week.

To be conducted over six months in Cyberjaya, the trials will provide a deeper analysis of 5G characteristics, including the use of spectrum in higher bands, co-existence with current services, as well as use cases such as Gigabit high speed Mobile Internet and Ultra High-Definition Virtual Reality (VR) applications. During the trial so far, Maxis recorded close to 3Gbps download speed.

“This is another significant step forward for us in our 5G journey. Over the last few years, we have been assessing the technology and conducting demo trials in our test lab. We are already upgrading our transport network to support these gigabit speeds and at the same time virtualising our core network elements for flexibility and scalability for the capacity demands of this technology.

“We are really excited at the potential of 5G in a future of smart solutions for both consumers and businesses, and we are pleased with our progress. Maxis has always been at the forefront in introducing new technologies to Malaysia. We were the first to bring 4G and we are excited to be doing it again with 5G,” said Maxis chief technology officer Morten Bangsgaard (pic).

Maxis and Huawei’s recently formalised its 5G acceleration programme through an MoU in Barcelona last week, where both parties will cooperate on full-fledged 5G trials with end-to-end systems and services.

The trial also follows the recent announcement by the Government that Cyberjaya and Putrajaya will become the first smart cities in Malaysia to experience 5G technology.

Once available, 5G is expected to provide speeds up to 10 times higher than what 4G network can do today for applications such as Ultra High-Definition VR and 360 degree viewing.

It will also open up new use cases in areas such as AI, robotics and drones. Some of the applications that will harness the capabilities of 5G include autonomous driving, smart manufacturing, eHealth, personal AI assistants and smart city initiatives.

5G is next generation of mobile communications. It is also termed as International Mobile Telecommunications 2020 (IMT-2020) by the International Telecommunication Union and is expected to enable greater capacity for wireless networks, greater reliability and low latency, massive connections to the Internet of Things (IoT) and enable new services across different industries.