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“Hang on, its buffering, and “oh great, I’m lagging again,”are sentences that nobody wants to say or hear in todays fast paced world.However,with the imminent arrival of 5G in the Saudi Arabia, a time will come when these two sentences will be nothing more than a painful memory of the past, experts reassure.

5G is all about “ubiquitous computing”, says Dr Ahmed bin Ali, senior vice president of corporate communication at Etisalat. What this means is that users will have the ability to access applications from any platform, anytime, and anywhere. It is the next step in the evolution of high-speed mobile broadband services, shaping the environment for growing the Internet of Things (IoT) and for smart cities to become a way of life for end users.

Etisalat completed the Mena region’s first 5G mobile technology live trial during Gitex 2016; the trial offered a peak speed of 36 gigabytes per second. In the lead up to the deployment of 5G in the Saudi Arabia by 2020, Etisalat aims to build an infrastructure that will be one of the smartest, fastest and the best for the global event.

“Our field test in October last year is a significant step in validating the performance of 5G in high frequency bands,” said bin Ali. “It has refreshed Etisalat’s understanding to the capabilities of the technology, which Etisalat believes will deliver capacity and connectivity beyond anything we’ve even come close to today. The new 5G network will help Etisalat cope with the massive digital content explosion anticipated in the next few years.”

He elaborated that 5G technology provides benefits on both the device and the network for subscribers. The efficiency in the 5G network will allow lower consumption of energy than what is used in 4G networks. There will be more disruptive capabilities on the network and the service level, improving services in terms of capacity, accuracy, reliability, availability and simultaneous connectivity among many devices. There is longer battery life for 5G based sensing devices that also consume less energy.