data centers and mobile network equipment. CareAR and Infosys are expanding their collaboration to accelerate metaverse service experience transformation enabled by the Infosys Metaverse Foundry, through instant real-time visual guidance and instructional content through devices and wearables.

5G news

After three full years of growth, global wireless 5G adoption has reached a rapid acceleration phase: the milestone of 701 million connections by the end of the first quarter of 2022. Omdia data forecast global connections will reach 1.2 billion by the end of this year, said 5G Americas. In other 5G research news, ABI Research also reveals that massive MIMO is driving growth in 5G outdoor infrastructure revenue, representing 35 percent of total revenue and reaching $43 billion in USD by 2027.

Vehicles warn each other of dangers on the road—and now even across national borders. Deutsche Telekom and Ericsson are demonstrating how seamless 5G connectivity works together with partners at the borders to France and Luxembourg through the 5GCroCo (Fifth Generation Cross-Border Control) initiative.

5G news also revealed progress toward “smart everything.” Ericsson, TIM and Comau have joined forces to test the “factory of the future” by leveraging 5G slicing functionality within an industrial environment to develop innovative solutions for Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing. AT&T participated in a U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Navy demonstration showcasing a variety of 5G-powered technology solutions that can support the enablement of a Naval Smart Warehouse. To advance smart city progress, the Wireless Broadband Alliance and City of Dublin announced a successful proof-of-concept trial of OpenRoaming in Dublin, Ireland for single-login seamless connectivity across devices that switches automatically between different public Wi-Fi hotspots.

VIAVI is supporting global access to NTT DOCOMO's 5G Open RAN Ecosystem Lab. NTT DOCOMO has now adopted key elements of VIAVI’s test suite for end-to-end testing of the entire O-RAN. Both companies are also active contributors to specifications development in the O-RAN ALLIANCE.

T-Mobile advanced standalone 5G capabilities with the launch of Voice Over 5G service for customers in limited areas. VoNR keeps devices always connected to 5G. T-Mobile also announced it was able to aggregate three channels of mid-band 5G spectrum, reaching speeds over 3 Gbps on its standalone 5G network. It’s the first time the test has ever been done with a commercial device on a live production network. In other news related to 5G speeds, Nokia, Elisa, and Qualcomm Technologies announced that they have hit record-breaking 5G uplink speeds of 2.1 Gbps. This was achieved in a live demonstration at the Nokia Arena in Tampere in Finland.

UScellular and Ericsson announced that they have begun 5G testing at altitude using drone technology. These tests are the first of their kind with UScellular's 5G network and lay the groundwork for future use cases of cellular-connected drones in a variety of industries.

Network news

In network news, Frost & Sullivan released analysis findings that the global secure SD-WAN solutions market is expected to reach $6.52 billion by 2026 from $1.67 billion in 2021 at a compound annual growth rate of 31.3 percent. Global SD-WAN demand is increasing as organizations strive to meet security concerns and improve the employee experience.

Bharti Airtel announced the launch of its fiber-to-the-home broadband service, Airtel Xstream Fiber in Ladakh and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. With it, Airtel has become the first private ISP to roll out FTTH broadband in these remote geographies. 

Infinera and NEC Corporation announced that Neutral Networks deployed Infinera’s ICE6 technology for its new transnational neutral fiber optic network NEXT. The optical network modernization is the largest project of its kind between Mexico and the United