On December 14, TIM and Ericsson announced they achieved speeds of more than 20 Gbps in a live 5G demonstration held at the Polytechnic University of Turin in Italy.
The demo, conducted on 28 GHz band on millimeter waves, resulted in a download speed of 23.4 Gbps, the fastest connection to date using this technology in an urban context. The demo also illustrated virtual reality in action – with an immersive visit of Piazza Carlo Alberto from the Polytechnic University.
Turin is one of the first cities in Europe to have a new generation mobile network. The 5G demo is an offshoot of the Memorandum of Understanding signed last March between TIM and Turin’s municipal authority to carry out the “Turin 5G” project, which aims to provide gradual coverage of the city with the next-generation mobile network by 2020.
With the partnership in Turin, TIM and Ericsson are strengthening a collaboration that started last year with the “5G for Italy” program. This program is seen giving rise to an open ecosystem in which to create innovative projects and services enabled by the fifth-generation network.
This scenario consolidates the historical collaboration between TIM and the Politecnico of Turin: during 2018 joint research activities will be carried out on 5G for the development of new generation applications.
With a transmission capacity 20 times greater than the current 4G one the 5G network will connect a very large number of objects and people to offer high quality, personalized and extremely engaging innovative services.
For “Turin 5G”, TIM is in fact developing applications dedicated to enhancing the cultural and artistic heritage as well as new solutions for the smart city, environmental monitoring, public safety, the vehicle industry, 4.0 industry, healthcare, education, mobility and road safety, logistics and smart agriculture.
The initiative confirms TIM’s commitment to bring about the digital transformation of the country, based on infrastructure and applications with a positive impact on all market sectors and on people's lifestyles, accompanying them into the future “Gigabit society” in which the company intends to play a leading role.