Telenet is to begin the rollout of its 5G network in Belgium on 6 December.
The first 5G zones will go live in Leuven, Antwerp and along the Belgian coastline. Customers with a 5G smartphone and business subscription will be first to experience the benefits of the new technology. Additional mobile products from Telenet, Telenet Business and BASE will follow next year.
The Liberty Global-owned network is working together with Nokia and Ericsson on the rollout, which will be significantly expanded to major Flemish cities and along the motorways in 2022.
“Through 5G we can make our society hyper-connected, which will lead to the creation of many new applications that may provide an answer to today’s problems,” said Micha Berger, Chief Technology Officer, Telenet. “The stability and responsiveness of 5G will be particularly noticeable in applications that require an immediate response or razor-sharp images, such as healthcare robotics, self-driving cars, autonomous drones, security cameras or virtual reality.”
For the initial rollout, Telenet is using the provisional spectrum licence granted by the Belgian Institute for Postal Services and Telecommunications (BIPT) in 2020. The spectrum is in the 3.6 GHz and 3.8 GHz frequency areas. The high frequency has a shorter range and is particularly suitable for increasing the capacity of the mobile network in specific places. This also means that 5G coverage will often be limited to smaller areas around the transmission towers.
For the full rollout of 5G – with its associated benefits of increased capacity and fast response times – Telenet needs to await the government’s licence auction which is currently scheduled for the second quarter of 2022.
