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Tokyo, Jan. 3 (Jiji Press) Major mobile carriers in Japan are rushing to build base stations for fifth-generation, or 5G, large-capacity ultrahigh-speed services, but nationwide coverage is expected to take several more years.
Despite people s high interest in 5G, the services are available in limited areas in the country at present. Data communication speeds for 5G services are up to 100 times those for existing fourth-generation, or 4G, services, allowing a two-hour movie to be downloaded in only seconds, compared for about five minutes needed for 4G services.
NTT Docomo Inc., KDDI Corp. and SoftBank Corp. launched their 5G services in March last year, followed by Rakuten Mobile Inc. half a year later. Handsets for 5G services are selling well recently although there was a tough time with the spread of the novel coronavirus, KDDI Executive Vice President Takashi Shoji said.
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A woman films a display at the Tokyo Midtown complex last month. Despite people s high interest in 5G, the services are only available in limited areas of the country at present. | BLOOMBERG
Jiji Jan 3, 2021
Major mobile carriers in Japan are rushing to build base stations for ultrafast 5G services but nationwide coverage is expected to take several more years.
Despite people’s high interest in 5G, the services are only available in limited areas of the country at present. Data communication speeds for 5G services are up to 100 times those for 4G services, allowing a two-hour movie to be downloaded in only seconds, compared to about five minutes for 4G services.
If there was an operator award for generating the most noise and interest surrounding open RAN and cloud-native networks during 2020 then Japan s Rakuten Mobile would surely win it.
True, Vodafone and Telefónica have also been banging the open RAN drum loudly this year. Deutsche Telekom has been shouting a lot more about it as well, particularly since the O-RAN Alliance formed a strategic partnership with the Facebook-backed Telecom Infra Project in February.
Making waves: Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani on stage at a recent press event.
It s only Rakuten Mobile, however, that has gotten its hands seriously dirty with the nascent tech through sizable commercial launches in urban areas.
The COVID-19 pandemic did not demonstrably affect investments in 5G radio access networks (RAN) despite early concerns that the crisis would slow the pace of 5G growth, according to a new analyst report from Light Reading sister company Omdia.
In fact, Omdia is now forecasting that 2021 will be the year that 5G RAN investments exceed those in LTE RAN, and it predicts that 5G will account for more than half of all RAN investments in 2021.
In the report, 2021 Trends to Watch: Mobile Infrastructure, Omdia analysts Daryl Schoolar, practice leader, service provider networks, and Chris Nicoll, senior principal analyst, service provider networks, also note that delayed 5G spectrum auctions in 2020 will take place in 2021, leading to increased 5G builds next year.
Dec 23, 2020
(L-R): Park Seung-ki, Kakao Brain President; Kim Yoon, SK Telecom CTO; Woo Kyeong-koo, Samsung Electronics director of AI
South Korean firms team on AI initiative
Orange bags role in new Euro space network study
Wildanet lands new funding for fibre, FWA rollout
TelecomTV to recharge its batteries
Efforts to thwart the spread of Covid-19, news of a new European space initiative, fresh funding for fibre in Cornwall and an extended seasonal siesta feature in this year’s final news roundup.
The artificial intelligence (AI) teams from
SK Telecom,
Samsung and mobile messaging specialist Kakao are teaming up to develop a system that can analyse Covid-19 threats in real time and predict people movement patters, with a view to launching a service in the first half of 2021, reports Hankyoreh (hani.co.kr).