Malaysia’s first 5G trial takes off under auspices of Celcom and Ericsson

The first 5G trial on the 28 Ghz band in Southeast Asia was conducted today by Celcom Axiata Berhad and Ericsson. This was the sum effort of a memorandum of understanding signed earlier this year in Barcelona between both organisations and is in line with the government’s efforts to promote a ‘Digital Malaysia’ by 2020.

The live test offered a glimpse of the future and was conducted with 5G radio prototypes, managing to achieve a throughput of up to 18Gbps with 5ms latency. The test also involved several possible scenarios of its implementation. Among the use cases explored were robotic control, virtual reality and more importantly for those of us who remain hooked on video streaming – 4K video streaming over 5G.

5G isn’t just about smoother video streaming and faster downloads but is the linchpin for how many industries will operate. It’s not appearing anytime soon but today was a wonderful peek at the future indeed.

Michael Kuehner, CEO amd Executive Director of Celcom Axiata Berhad at the 5G trial