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April 2020 www.intellinews.com I Page 7
Magyar Telekom first to launch commercial 5G service in Budapest
Magyar Telekom together with Ericsson announced the launch of commercial 5G
mobile services in some parts of Budapest and Zalaegerszeg, Hungary's leading mobile operator announced on April 9.
Magyar Telekkom launched the commercial 5G service in Budapest at its headquarters and the neighbouring Groupama Arena as well at Puskas Arena. Commercial 5G service was also launched in the centre of Zalaegerszeg in western Hungary and at the city's ZalaZone self-driving vehicle test track. The service is available with 5G devices and appropriate postpaid packages.
The live 5G network launch comes just two weeks after Magyar Telekom secured the related 3.6GHz spectrum at a spectrum auction on March 26.
Hungary's media authority NMHH announced tenders for the sale of 700MHz, 2100MHz, 2600MHz and 3600 MHz frequency bands in the summer and awarded 5G licenses for 15 years to the three incumbents last month. Vodafone, Telenor and Magyar Telekom paid a total or HUF126bn (€350mn) for the frequencies. Magyar Telekom paid HUF54bn for the three frequency blocks totalling 120MHz.
The launch comes ten months after the company
launched Hungary’s first standard 5G test station in Zalaegerszeg.
"Magyar Telekom has been preparing to launch 5G for a long time after exploring business opportunities and 5G technology and operating a test network for six months with Ericsson", CEO Tibor Rekasi said.
"As leaders in 5G, we at Ericsson have seen the massive impact it has on innovation, and I’m excited to see what opportunities it will bring to Hungary," said Arun Bansal, Ericsson president for Europe and Latin America.
The next, fifth-generation (5G) mobile technology ensures ten times higher data transmission speed considerably reduced latency, and much better customer experience than at present.
The technology allows millions of devices to be concurrently connected to the network. 5G will bring new solutions in a number of industries, such as agriculture, the automotive industry, energetics, transport, health care or education, Magyar Telekom said.
Magyar Telekom will provide 5G network capability for six months for subscribers with unlimited mobile data packages.