At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, multinational ICT firm Huawei stressed its commitment to accelerate digital upgrade in emerging markets and used the forum to launch its 5G customer-premises equipment (CPE) – which the company claims is the world's first commercial terminal device supporting the globally recognised 3GPP telecommunication standard for 5G.

The technology works off Huawei's self-developed Balong 5G01 chipset with theoretical downlink speeds of up to 2.3Gbps.

According to Huawei, the offering supports 5G across all frequency bands including sub-6 GHz and millimeter wave (mmWave) "to offer a complete 5G solution suitable for multiple use cases."

Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group said, "5G technology will underpin the next leap forward for our intelligent world, where people, vehicles, homes and devices are fully connected, delivering new experiences, insights and capabilities. Since 2009, Huawei has invested US$600 million in research and development into 5G technologies, where we have led the way with innovations around network architecture, spectrum usage, field verification and more. From connected vehicles and smart homes to AR/VR and hologram videos, we are committed to developing a mature 5G ecosystem so that consumers can benefit from a truly connected world that transforms the way we communicate and share."

According to Huawei 5G networks set new standards for high speed, wide bandwidth, low latency wireless connections, with a peak downlink rate of 20Gbps, support for one million devices per square kilometer and latency as low as 0.5ms.

"5G promises an enhanced connection between people and the Internet of Things, raising the potential for the number of devices that can be connected and the amount and type of data that can be shared between them," the company explains.

Huawei says it has partnered with Vodafone, Softbank, T-Mobile, BT, Telefonica, China Mobile and China Telecom, among others, and in 2017 began testing 5G commercial networks with partners.

It started offering the first round of 5G commercial networks in 2018.

Wireless-to-the-x

Huawei believes wireless-to-the-x has significant potential for broadband penetration in markets including Mongolia, Philippines, South Africa and Sri Lanka.

"Over the course of one year, in Mongolia and Morocco, broadband connections are provided for 10% and 5% of families, respectively. In Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the traditional copper cables will be introduced to improve user experience," the company adds.

Huawei says in 2017 more than 450 million people were connected to mobile internet, and more than 30 million families had access to broadband services.

"However, 3 billion people in the world still lack access, and 870 million do not even own mobile phones. 1.1 billion families still do not have broadband connections. With growing mobile adoption and rising GDP per capita in densely populated emerging markets, a large proportion of income is spent on both voice and data services. This offers significant opportunities for operators. It is estimated that over the next five years, more than 1 billion people in emerging markets will be connected and the resulting traffic will increase by five to ten times," reads the statement.

Zhou Jianjun, Vice President of Huawei Carrier BG, said that "To capitalise on the vast opportunities in emerging markets, operators need to deliver a better scenario-based service and accelerate their return on investment (ROI)."