Singtel and Ericsson plan to jointly establish a Center of Excellence (CoE) to facilitate 5G development and deployment in Singapore. With an initial investment of 2 million Singapore Dollars over the next three years, CoE aims to spearhead the development of Singapore’s 5G mobile network infrastructure to support future Smart Nation initiatives. 

5G, the next-generation mobile network technology, is expected to roll out globally from 2020 and will deliver massive connectivity, ultra-low latency, gigabit speeds, and enable advanced applications such as smart cities, Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality, and autonomous vehicles.

Activities will kick off in the later part of 2017, starting with Ericsson providing 5G expertise and conducting workshops, followed by field testing and hands-on experience to equip more than 100 Singtel engineers with critical competencies in designing and operating a 5G network.

5G demos will be set up in Singtel’s Comcentre headquarters to showcase future 5G application possibilities such as, immersive experience on Augmented Reality, enablement of haptic feedback in surgical operations, and remote medical education. 

Starting next year, a mobile 5G test bed will be deployed to carry out live 5G field trials with key enterprise customers.

Earlier this year, high download speeds of up to 1 Gbps were achieved in Singapore in a live LTE network by deploying 256 QAM downlink, 4x4 MIMO and triple carrier aggregation techniques. Singtel’s 4G LTE network currently supports 500Mbps nationwide, supporting the latest Cat 11 and above handsets such as iPhone 8 and Samsung Note8.