Faroese Telecom and Ericsson have demonstrated a downlink speed of 5.9Gbps on a smartphone connected to a live network using 5G mmWave spectrum, claiming the result as a European record. mmWave technology will subsequently be deployed across all 18 isles of the Faroe Islands to deliver high capacity and multi-gigabit mobile broadband access in suburban and rural areas, the partners’ press release announced.

Since beginning 5G deployment across the Faroes starting in 2022, Faroese Telecom’s radio access network (RAN) has been built out with the aim of achieving 100% geographic coverage plus sea coverage reaching 120km out in all directions from the islands. Jan Ziskasen, CEO of Faroese Telecom Group, said: ‘Our ambition is to have giga speed everywhere on the islands – in cities as well as in small villages, on roads, in tunnels, on mountaintops and even out to sea.’ Since 2021, Ericsson is the telco’s sole provider of 5G RAN and 5G Core, including full modernisation of the existing 4G network.

The latest 5G non-standalone (NSA) tests involved aggregating 800MHz of 5G mmWave spectrum in the n258 band and 40MHz of 4G FDD spectrum with 256QAM modulation. Upload speed of 1.6Gbps was registered.