Smart Communications Inc. said it successfully made the first 5G standalone video call in Southeast Asia, using Nokia’s 5G SA equipment.
“This is the first 5G implementation which is completely standalone. We don’t need LTE for it. Most 5G implementations today actually need LTE”•in fact they’re actually only fast LTE,” said PLDT-Smart chief information and technical advisor Joachim Horn.
“What we’re seeing here”•this is real 5G. For the first time, we are experiencing the true capabilities of 5G. For example, 5G’s real low latency can only be achieved in this configuration. This is just the first milestone to show what is possible, and we brought it here to the Technolab,” Horn said.
PLDT-Smart executives led by Horn, Smart chief financial officer Chaye Cabal-Revilla, PLDT business transformation office head Ricky Vargas, PLDT-Smart senior vice president for network planning and engineering Mario Tamayo and Nokia officials led by country head for the Philippines Andrew Cope made the video call using Nokia’s 5G SA core, radio and user equipment installed at the PLDT-Smart 5G Technolab.
PLDT described 5G SA as ‘pure 5G’ as it relies solely on 5G for data transmission and allows the full benefit of 5G capabilities to be tested and demonstrated. In contrast, 5G NSA (non-standalone) combines the use of 5G and existing 4G/LTE resources to transmit data.
The technology paves the way for a variety of new industry applications that utilize 5G’s full features such as massive connectivity for thousands of devices, ultra-low latency of under 10ms, ultra-high reliability, distributed cloud computing, unified security and network slicing
PLDT-Smart and Nokia signed a memorandum of understanding in March this year to deploy 5G SA solutions in the Philippines, particularly for schools.
Using the combined capabilities of the PLDT-Smart 5G Technolab and the Nokia Technology Center in Quezon City, the companies are collaborating to identify innovative 5G SA solutions, such as artificial intelligence, drones and Internet of Things (IoT) applications.
PLDT-Smart launched the Ateneo de Manila University as the first “Smart 5G campus” in April.