Connect 5G in collaboration with Xtreme5G announced that they reached a significant milestone in their 5G roadmap, which addresses the digital divide in rural America. In a first for the industry, Connect 5G has successfully integrated the open-source New Radio (NR) Evolved Packet Core (EPC), “Magma”, deployed on an Arm®-based edge device supporting a Stand Alone (5G-SA) radio. This network in-a-box edge solution achieved 550Mbps Downlink with 55Mbps Uplink on a single 40 MHz channel in the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum, with high expectations for coming tests on wider channels. The trial took place together with Xtreme5G in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania early October 2022.
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“This is a game changer for Fixed Wireless Carriers, Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs), and Private 5G operators who now will be able to provide highly reliable and affordable high-speed internet access services to rural communities based on the global 5G standard. This integrated solution gives a great commercial advantage by having the Next Generation packet Core (NGC) deployed together with the 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) at the edge of the network as a self-contained unit, yielding significant cost savings on the needed backhaul capacity and improves availability. In addition, key U.S. funding targets can now be achieved and thus unleashing government funds for deployments,” said Patrik Melander, Chairman, CEO, and co-founder of Connect 5G.
David Tews, President, and CEO of Xtreme5G said, “the pre-integrated solution can operate in both 4G-LTE and 5G using CBRS spectrum as well as on other licensed bands. 5G-SA technology provides substantial speed and latency improvements when compared to 4G-LTE. 5G technology provides an incremental advantage over traditional fiber-to-home broadband internet access by allowing rapid deployment of the network for a fraction of the cost and fraction of the time that is required to build the fiber infrastructure in rural areas.”