Swiss operator Sunrise has put the first Swiss 5G antenna into operation, only six months after setting a world record under laboratory conditions. The operator also demonstrated '5G for People' with a Huawei Wi-Fi hotspot device.
For the demonstration, Huawei provided its latest 5G New Radio equipment and CPE, which enables Sunrise to be one of their first customers in Europe that can show the public the potential of 5G in an end-to-end environment, said Wang Haitao, CEO Huawei Switzerland.
Sunrise has demonstrated the benefits of high-bandwidth connections, up to 1 Gbps, which will be available for both business and private customers as early as 2020, even without a fibre connection, said Olaf Swantee, CEO of Sunrise.
Starting in 2020, Sunrise will focus on '5G for People' as the area with the greatest potential. 5G makes it possible to deliver the bandwidth of fibre-optics over a mobile network using a 5G Wi-Fi hotspot and a 5G mobile network connection.
'5G for People' benefits business and private customers, especially those outside of high-population areas, since these locations usually have no fibre connections and there is greater potential to expand existing mobile network systems with 5G, the operator said. More than 90 percent of the antennas in urban areas cannot be expanded because of strict radiation limits in Switzerland.
According to Sunrise, the regulatory limits may significantly delay 5G in Switzerland, as the current limits are ten times more exacting than regulations abroad. Coupled with rigid administrative and technical implementing provisions and lengthy mobile network approval procedures, this threatens to delay the introduction of 5G and its related performance enhancements until 2020 and beyond because the existing infrastructure is unable to expand much further, especially in urban areas, the company said.
