A trio of telecoms trailblazers managed to break the 2 Gbps barrier with 5G over 26 GHz, which is apparently a European record.

TIM, Ericsson and Qualcomm have a rich history of collaborating in the name of self-promotion over 5G and there’s nothing like a speed record for a bit of corporate chest-beating. TIM has a whopping 400MHz of spectrum in this millimetre wave band, which is the main reason it’s able to set records such as this. Meanwhile, as ever, Ericsson provided the radio and Qualcomm the modem.

“This milestone paves the way to the development of new 5G solutions to grant fixed ultrabroadband to families, companies and public authorities not yet covered,” said Michele Gamberini, TIM’s CTIO. “This also includes coverage dedicated to the development of robotics and automation digital services in the smart manufacturing area. All of our customers will therefore be able to take advantage of a wide range of integrated solutions that will allow them to fully enter the digital society”.

“We are extremely pleased that TIM has chosen Ericsson’s 5G technology to achieve this important milestone, placing our country at the forefront of the commercial implementation of the fifth generation of mobile networks,” said Emanuele Iannetti, Country Manager at Ericsson Italy. “Ericsson thus confirms its technological leadership and its readiness to anticipate any market demands.”

“Qualcomm Technologies congratulates TIM on this significant milestone which again demonstrates the potential of 5G mmWave technology and shows how operators are able to use a wide range of spectrum bands to deploy 5G,” said Enrico Salvatori, president, Qualcomm EMEA. “2020 will see a significant expansion in 5G coverage and the use of mmWave bands will play a clear role in the build-out.”

The rest of the TIM press release was mostly spent going on about how this proves the company was right to blow loads of cash at the last Italian spectrum auction. It still remains to be seen how useful high frequency spectrum will be in real life, or indeed how much use there will be for such high data rates, but it’s always nice to be able to claim you’re at the cutting edge regardless.

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