Telcos sell 5G in neighborhoods of 17 cities
The delay in the necessary steps to launch the auction of 5G wireless spectrum, expected for this year, did not prevent the fifth-generation technology from moving forward in Brazil.
Nine months after its commercial debut in the country, 5G is offered - albeit on a limited scale and partial functionality - by the country's four largest phone carriers in 17 cities.
The installed infrastructure is still incipient, especially when compared to the preceding technology, 4G, whose coverage reached 5,203 cities at the end of February, according to consultancy Teleco. The National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) reports that phone carriers hold 150 transmission antennas with 5G DSS technology.
DSS, which stands for dynamic spectrum sharing, was the solution found by telecommunication companies to provide the service under the spectrum they already own. The technology allows them to virtually group frequency together and alternately use those that are in less demand. The network resources are automatically allocated to serve both current smartphones - connected to the 4G network, for example - and new cell phones adapted to the 5G standard.
Anatel says the number of antennas with 5G DSS technology may be, in practice, higher than the 150 registered. According to the current regulations, phone carriers must inform the telecom regulator whenever they activate a new radio base station (the antenna and radio set), specifying the technologies available.
This way, new base stations with capacity to use 5G DSS technology are signalized. The obligation to notify the authorities does not apply to radio base stations that were already part of the carriers' network. In many of these stations companies only had to modernize the software to be able to operate with 5G DSS technology.
América Móvil's Claro alone has at least 600 5G DSS "sites" (network infrastructure points) installed in the regions with the highest traffic in the 14 cities where it offers the service, says André Sarcinelli, the company's engineering head. Each site may contain more than one radio base station, even from different carriers.
Oi, TIM Brasil and Telefónica's Vivo do not disclose specific data about their fifth-generation infrastructure, only the number of cities in which the 5G network has been activated. Like Claro, they all emphasize that coverage in these cities is restricted to specific regions or neighborhoods and none charge customers for the use of the fifth-generation...
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