Arqiva and Samsung start 5G fixed wireless access trial in London

The two companies' trial uses Samsung’s 5G network solution and customer premises equipment (CPE) and Arqiva’s 28 GHz millimetre wave spectrum – it holds a total of 600 MHz in London. The trial’s aim is to demonstrate the stability of the FWA service and its potential as a fast-to-market and cost-effective alternative to fibre to the premises (FTTP) for homes and businesses.

The trial has three main components: A radio access unit, a CPE (which like a Wi-Fi router can be installed by customers) and Samsung’s virtualized core. The radio access unit is located on the rooftop of Arqiva’s Fitzrovia office and wireless links to the CPE (which is easy to install). The CPE is located by a window inside Arqiva’s nearby headquarters, 230 metres away, and the connectivity is being used to stream four 4K HD channels and virtual reality displays to demonstrate some possible use cases of the technology. Samsung’s virtualized core is responsible for managing user connections and data routing from Arqiva’s network to the internet – which is running on Arqiva's data centre servers.