TPG Telecom has opened a 5G technology “Innovation Lab” in Sydney to allow vendors to trial their emerging 5G-related technology.
Samsung Electronics also signed on as the first vendor to run trials, specifically with its Compact Macro and vRAN with integrated 26GHz mmWave solutions.
TPG aims to provide a single integrated site to drive product innovation around technology like network virtualisation and emerging 5G applications for industry.
Located in the Sydney suburb Glebe, the facility comprises an onsite data centre and rooftop mobile site, allowing vendors to partner with TPG to accelerate the adoption of solutions including vRAN, Mobile Edge Computing, mobile private networks and Open RAN.
“This is an incredibly exciting new initiative that will allow us to explore end to end cloud native 5G infrastructure and unleash the full potential of 5G in driving industry digitisation and automation,” TPG Telecom executive general manager for mobile and fixed networks Barry Kezik said.
“Not only will this allow us to evaluate innovations in 5G network infrastructure to deliver better customer experience with lower cost, the real potential here is to unlock 5G’s high throughput and ultralow latency capabilities for industry verticals.
“We are talking about utilising augmented reality and virtual reality for smart training, low latency remote control for mining and transportation, and smart city applications in collaboration with artificial intelligence and machine learning.”
Samsung will also deploy the Compact Macro 5G mmWave solution to the wider Glebe area as part of the trial.
TPG chief executive Iñaki Berroeta said, “We are very pleased to partner with Samsung as part of our new Innovation Lab to drive product and technology innovation by trialing virtualisation.”
“Deploying mmWave spectrum on our 5G network together with vRAN architecture will allow us to develop exciting 5G use cases for industry verticals and enable the delivery of even faster speeds and greater capacity for our customers.”
Kezik added that the lab would also enable TPG to benchmark and understand the
potential return on investment of different vendor radio technology through the trials.
“Having the ability to partner and trial different radio technology with different vendors within the Innovation Lab allows for greater ease in benchmarking performance,” he said.Got a news tip for our journalists? Share it with us anonymously here.