TELUS and Huawei Make Another Leap Forward On The Road To 5G

TELUS (TSX: T)(NYSE: TU), Canada's fastest growing national telecommunications company, and Huawei, one of the world's largest telecommunications and ICT (information and communications technology) suppliers have achieved another significant milestone in their journey towards 5G with the successful deployment of a Heterogeneous Network (HetNet) in the heart of the 5G Living Lab in Vancouver.

HetNet is one of the key building blocks for 5G and combines multiple types of cells (such as outdoor macrocells and microcells and indoor picocells) to enhance both coverage and capacity in crowded areas and inside buildings where outdoor signals do not reach. The network enables seamless transitions between cell types to ensure uninterrupted streaming of ultra-high-bandwidth applications (like high-definition video, video conferencing or cloud-based services) as devices move throughout the network. As data demands on wireless networks increase, HetNet will play a key role in providing an ultra-fast and reliable network experience, especially in dense urban environments.

"The advancements we are making at the 5G Living Lab are laying the foundation for our next generation of wireless networks," said Ibrahim Gedeon, TELUS' Chief Technical Officer. "These ground-breaking trials will one day enable the likes of driverless cars; smart homes, businesses and cities; new innovations in healthcare; as well as yet-to-be-imagined applications, devices and services powered by dramatically faster and more reliable wireless connections."

In addition, TELUS and Huawei have successfully enabled a C-RAN (Centralized Radio Access Network) across multiple 5G Living Lab sites in Vancouver and are now operating the largest C-RAN deployment in North America. C-RAN is a next-generation network architecture that centralizes the management of multiple cell sites, enabling intelligent allocation of radio capacity and improved network throughput in crowded urban areas or at special event locations.

The deployments took place in the heart of TELUS and Huawei's 5G Living Lab in downtown Vancouver, where both companies have been trialling next generation technologies since late last year in a live, real-world setting. While 5G is anticipated to become mainstream by 2020, TELUS customers living in the Vancouver area will benefit from these latest technological innovations right away.

"We're proud to be working with a true global innovator like TELUS," said Sean Yang, President of Huawei Canada. "Through our joint efforts in the 5G Living Lab, we are ensuring Vancouver and Canada are at the forefront of deploying the technologies that will bring 5G to life in the years ahead."

TELUS advancement towards 5G builds on the company's $1-billion investment to connect Vancouver to the TELUS PureFibre network, which will ultimately provide the backbone to support lightning-fast wireless speeds as the development roadmaps for wireless and wireline networks converge around 5G. The PureFibre network will provide nearly limitless capacity to support the highly efficient, reliable and blazing-fast wireless speeds 5G will enable for customers, heightening the importance of TELUS' fibre investments across Canada.

Source: TELUS release