Telekom took realistic and dramatic examples to demonstrate, what 5G technology will be able to do in the future, with features like extra low latency and significantly higher transmission speed, using greater bandwidth available in the new frequency range, and more efficient use of resources.

The new technology will be generally available in Europe within a few years, surpassing present capacities a thousandfold, allowing for billions of devices being connected to the network.

Following last year’s 5G connection demo with a speed up to 22 Gbps, this time Magyar Telekom demonstrated, in their Budqpest HQ, under real-life circumstances, what the 5G network would be capable of in a few years’ time.

The test network, operating within the 3.7 GHz spectrum, was implemented with a pre-standard 5G system, using Huawei Technologies’ 5G network devices, ready for commercial launch.

„Although digitization provides fantastic possibilities already now, 5G will elevate this to a new level, ensuring even better opportunities and quality of life for all of us. 5G is a genuine leap, an industrial revolution that transforms the manufacturing sector, healthcare, education, transport and almost every facet of life.

Magyar Telekom is constantly seeking to prepare for this new era with the appropriate network and services, and experiments with the help of partners for the benefit of customers and society as a whole” – explained Tibor Rékasi, Magyar Telekom’s new CEO.

5G, representing a completely new network concept, combines the advantages of fixed and mobile communication. It is a latency free, lightning fast and continuously available connection that can service robots and production lines, is able to safely provide information to vehicles traveling on the ground, on water and in the air, predictively preparing itself for traffic surges, or autonomously repair its own errors.

Although it will be significantly faster than currently available networks, 5G offers not only higher speed, but also its built-in network intelligence and a capability to interwork with other technologies.

With the recent demonstration, the leading Hungarian telco follows in the steps of its mother company, Deutsche Telekom (DT), which was the first to set up a real 5G connection in Europe, in October 2017 in Berlin, working within the 3.7 GHz spectrum with up to 2 Gbps speed and a mere 3 ms latency.

This year in May, DT presented Europe’s first network test in accordance with the 5G NR NSA standard on a commercial network.

Presented use cases:

Real time remote diagnosis via the 5G network

* Early status assessment is of key importance in case of treating injuries of trauma patients. In the presented use case, the hospital doctor can get real time information on the injuries of the patient with the assistance of the paramedic, already before the patient is transported from the scene of the accident to the hospital. The idea is that in the future a special medical probe would transmit recorded material in real time via the 5G network for remote, 3D imaging, which is then sent directly to the doctor or the paramedic. This way the doctor and the paramedic can both see the status of the patient, which makes it easier and faster for them to establish a diagnosis and they can start planning the necessary treatment (e.g. surgery).

* The data obtained from the probe is sent to the cloud, where various application specific evaluation and image processing activities are performed to prepare a 3D holographic image, more detailed than CT or MRI, which arrives in real time to the tablet or special AR glasses of the doctor who receives the patient. Thanks to the high transmission speed provided by 5G, and reliable, low latency communication, the paramedic and hospital doctor are able to concurrently see the same, synchronized image.

Rescue with drone – using 5G

* Nowadays drones are able to autonomously follow a pre-established flight path, but controlling them through the mobile network and transmitting recorded material using traditional mobile network technologies has not been resolved to date in an efficient way. In cases when the drone needs to be controlled, it is mostly a WiFi signal that establishes connection between pilot and device, which, however, results in range limitations. 5G technology opens up new dimensions in the innovative use of drones, allowing, among others, for their emergency life-saving application in the near future.

* A drone, equipped with a thermal camera, can be of help in search and rescue efforts, investigating the terrain, looking for missing or injured persons or victims. An advantage is its quick deployment option: in case of difficult terrain and a scene that is hard to access, it can start the search way before the rescue team’s arrival. The remotely controlled drone can investigate a large area, and images from its camera can be transmitted to a user at a remote site via the 5G network.

* A reliable transmission link, low latency, vertical beam forming and beam steering - all part of 5G mobile technology - are a prerequisite to efficient operation. 5G speeds allow for controlling the drone, and also for transmitting images or even 360 degree videos in real time via the network.  Images arrive with accurate geographical location data, this way the rescue team can hurry to the exact site, which accelerates the rescue process.

Gaming in augmented reality

* In the presented use case, gamers can follow race cars on a track, using their AR goggles, and can see the track already with environment dependent information and statistics.

* 5G is used to transmit the video feed from the track to the cloud, where the positions of the race cars is done through real time object recognition, then the augmented reality content is displayed on a screen or special AR goggle. Efficient cloud upload, efficient imaging and image transmission to the AR device require high transmission speed and low latency.

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