Huawei urges partnerships to grow 5G

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Huawei Rotating Chairman, Ken Hu

by TINTSWALO BALOYI
JOHANNESBURG, (CAJ News) HUAWEI has encouraged information and communications technology (ICT) stakeholders to collaborate on the next stage of fifth generation networks (5G) development.

Ken Hu, Huawei’s Rotating Chairman, made the call as he kicked off the 12th annual Global Mobile Broadband Forum (MBBF) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Hu outlined Extended Reality (XR) services, the business-to-business (B2B) market and low-carbon development as the three areas of opportunity that would drive the next stage of 5G’s growth.

He said in five years of commercial deployment, 5G had exceeded Huawei’s expectations.

It has provided a considerable upgrade in mobile experience for consumers, and it is already starting to empower different industries around the globe, the executive said.

“Progress was much faster than we expected, especially in terms of the subscriber base, network coverage, and the sheer number of 5G terminals on the market,” Hu said.

According to Huawei, there are currently 176 commercial 5G networks around the globe, serving more than 500 million subscribers.

Average 5G download speeds are roughly ten times greater than 4G, which has fuelled broader adoption of applications like VR and 360º broadcasting.

In the enterprise space, there are already 10 000 projects exploring B2B applications of 5G (5GtoB) around the world.

5G applications in industries like manufacturing, mining, and ports have already passed trial and are being replicated at scale.

While progress has been steady, Hu noted that there are still some areas for improvement.

Currently, more than half of these 10 000 5GtoB projects are in China.

5GtoB is described as a “one-stop solution that covers sales, operations and services.”

“We have a huge number of use cases already, but we need to build more sustainable business cases,” Hu said.

He called for lowering barriers to headset adoption as critical to reaching a tipping point in virtual reality.

Telecom operators also need to enhance their networks and develop new capabilities to prepare for 5GtoB.

Huawei believes the industry needs to get ready to go green.

The World Economic Forum projects that by 2030, digital technology can help reduce global carbon emissions by at least 15 percent.

“On one hand, we have a great opportunity to help all industries cut emissions and improve power efficiency with digital technology,” Hu said.

“On the other hand, we have to recognize that our industry has a growing carbon footprint, and we have to take steps to improve that,” he added.

– CAJ News

 

 

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