1 June 2017, St Petersburg. On the first day of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), MegaFon and Huawei set an all-time mobile internet speed record for Russia, demonstrating the operation of a 5G network at speeds of 35 GB/s.

“Exactly one year ago we demonstrated speeds of slightly faster than 1 GB/s. It’s symbolic that we have returned to the same venue, the St Petersburg Communications Museum — but this time with new technologies — to today showcase even higher speeds on a 5G network. You can talk and fantasize about how the internet will develop in future but here today we can already say that 5G will arrive in Russia very soon. Russia will host the World Cup in 2018 and I can say with confidence that this will be the fastest tournament in history. Everyone who is in Moscow and St Petersburg during the championship will have the opportunity to experience the emotions of this event in an entirely new way thanks to fast internet from MegaFon,” said MegaFon CEO Sergey Soldatenkov.

At their stand in St Petersburg, MegaFon and Huawei presented a 5G base station in action, using TDD in the 70 GHz (E-band) frequency band with bandwidth of 2 GHz.

Aside from its high speed, 5G also ensures unprecedentedly low data transfer latency (less than 1 ms), which opens up new opportunities to use 5G in various areas of life. One such area is driverless cars, where reaction speed is vital. The stand featured a model car and virtual reality, allowing visitors to experience how — thanks to numerous sensors that communicate with each other over wireless 5G internet — the car could react in good time to changes in road conditions, cross junctions without traffic lights, overtake and much more.

“We have entered an era where all areas of life are going digital. As the future network technology, 5G will ensure connectivity anywhere, anytime, when in motion and with virtually no latency and unlimited possibilities for application. This will require the efforts of the entire ecosystem — operators, equipment manufacturers and industrial partners. Huawei is actively collaborating with sector players to develop and improve 5G technologies and create new use scenarios and business scenarios to speed up industrial and social transformation. There is a huge space for collaboration between Huawei and MegaFon — two innovative companies — for development of 5G on the path towards an ideal communications world,” said Huawei Russia CEO Aiden Wu.

5G will make it possible to implement services capable of making a country’s entire economy more competitive. Dozens of different sectors will be able to significantly reduce costs, boost labour efficiency and free up human potential from routine tasks for creative work, which will overall boost the efficiency of the economy and significantly increase quality of life. MegaFon is already putting considerable effort into exploring and applying the very latest ideas, often even ahead of leading telecom companies from more developed countries.

“In 2008, MegaFon was the first Russian operator to launch a commercial 3G (UMTS) network. In 2012, the company was the first major operator in the country to roll out a 4G (LTE) network and, in 2014, was the first to launch an LTE Advanced network, which at the time became the fastest commercial mobile network in the world. The company offers the fastest mobile internet access in Russia. Today MegaFon subscribers have access to speeds of up to 300 MB/s and up to 450 MB/s in Moscow. Right now as part of our development program we are creating the technological base for 5G so we can be the first in Russia to launch a commercial network using this technology and again astonish our subscribers with the fastest speeds,” said MegaFon Chief Technology Officer Alexander Bashmakov.