China Unicom, China’s second largest operator, and Swedish equipment vendor Ericsson announced the commercial launch of a gigabit LTE network in parts of the country delivering (theoretical) peak speeds of up to 979Mb/s.
During the launch of the service on Tuesday (22 August), passengers on the Hainan Island high-speed train could watch the ceremony and experience virtual reality video using the new network and LTE-Broadcast technology.
Ericsson is the operator’s exclusive provider for LTE-Broadcast equipment, and the deployment is China’s first commercial rollout of the technology.
The gigabit network is available in Guangdong, Hainan, Shandong and Beijing . The two companies are conducting ongoing 1Gb/s trials in Sichuan, Hubei, Shanxi, Jilin and Jiangsu provinces.
China Unicom is the latest operator in Asia to push gigabit services. Earlier this week Mobile World Live reported that Thailand’s AIS launched 1Gb/s download speeds in “major provinces nationwide”, while Australia’s Telstra pioneered the service back in January. Devices from Samsung (S8, S8+ and Note8) support gigabit services.
