NUR-SULTAN – The first 5G city, sponsored by Kcell, one of the country’s largest mobile network operators, and Ericsson, Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company, will be set up in Turkistan – the capital of the Turkic world, reports inbusiness.kz.
With their strategic agreement, Kcell and Ericsson intend to accelerate the development of 5G technologies in the country.
“The launch of 5G in Kazakhstan will boost digital economy development. A new generation network will accelerate the development of artificial intelligence, the Industrial Internet of Things (IoT), the smart city concept, cloud computing, and Big Data,” said Kcell CEO Yuri Kharlamov.
He said there are eight outdoor stations, which now operate in the historical center of Turkistan. They cover the city akimat (city administration), Congress Hall, Turkistan Arena stadium, bus station, Farab Central library, Batyr Youth Palace among other sites.
According to the operator, the Internet speed was 1.5 Gbit/s during tests. The new standard also provides high bandwidth and reduces signal delay.
Besides outdoor stations, indoor websites are planned to be set up in other important tourist sites, including the airport, Kcell office and Rixos Hotel.
Testing of the fifth-generation network began in Nur-Sultan and Almaty last October, while a test pilot was launched in 2019.
Kcell and Activ (a mobile network operator, which belongs to Kcell) users will be able to connect to the 5G from most smartphone models that support the transfer of data into a new generation network.