Nokia and Ericsson have been selected as the central 5G network providers in Singapore, telecommunications operators disclosed, leaving China's Huawei with only a limited part as the tech group faces rising scrutiny by the United States.
Huawei was hounded by accusations of stealing US trade secrets and helping China's spying activities, with Washington pressuring nations to prevent Huawei from engaging in their next-generation infrastructure. Huawei denied it has any connections with the Chinese government. The Chinese tech only won a deal to provide a smaller, local network system, run by TPG Telecom, a more minor company.
Singapore has given telecoms companies the free hand to pick their network vendors on condition that they meet various criteria, including performance and security. 5G refers to the fifth-generation of high-speed mobile internet whose goal is to provide faster data transmissions and a larger volume of bandwidth to deal with increasing levels of online traffic.
The telecoms bagged the 5G licenses last April but have yet to finalize the needed regulatory processes, which includes the selection of preferred frequency spectrum lots, vendor partners, and other legal and technical issues, Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) disclosed on Wednesday.
A partnership between StarHub and M1 awarded one of the city government's fifth-generation licenses disclosed that it had chosen Nokia to develop its radio network and that the Finnish group was its preferred vendor for its main and mmWave networks.
The joint venture stated it was also looking into other network components with Huawei and China's ZTE. In a separate statement, 5G licensee Singapore Telecommunications announced that it had chosen Sweden's Ericsson to iron out details of the provision of core and mmWave networks.
Singapore Telecommunications, which is the nation's biggest telecom, and the partnership between M1 and StarHub will each create a standalone 5G infrastructure. These are networks architectured using 5G-specific technologies, providing broader-area coverage using the most advanced spectrum available in the market. These networks are also very expensive to set up.
Singapore is scheduled to unveil its 5G service in early 2021, with plans to cover the entire city state by 2025. 5G is the next wave of wireless systems that have been activated across the globe.
5G has been live in a host of key US cities, parts of China, the United Kingdom, and South Korea, among other nations. The latest technology is expected to make downloads and uploads superfast, but it is also capable of powering everything -- from autonomous vehicles to high-tech augmented reality devices.
