TIM and Huawei have chosen Curitiba to be the first city to test 5G

TIM Brasil and Huawei have signed a cooperation agreement to develop the fifth generation of mobile networks (5G) in Curitiba. The capital is the first city in the country that companies have chosen to launch the project called City 5G. According to TIM, the first exams should be completed by December 2023.

The partnership, which will run for two years, with the possibility of an extension, was announced this week by the two companies during Mobile World Congress, a global communications event taking place in Barcelona, ​​Spain.

The fifth generation of mobile networks (5G) will bring many benefits to residents and businesses, such as connections 100 times faster than 4G, lag-free connections, and new smart city services.

Cidade 5G is an offshoot of work the company is doing in partnership with Huawei to implement 5G networks in Brazil, Leonardo Capdevil, Vice President of Technology at TIM, said in a note. Through cooperation between companies, 2G, 3G, 4G and now 5G networks have been expanded and implemented.

Mayor Rafael Greca celebrates the announcement by TIM and Huawei that Curitiba will be the first city to receive the 5G City project. It is reported that since 2019, the capital has taken the lead in relation to other cities in Brazil by updating the laws regulating the installation of cell phone antennas in the city. Decree No. 989 made the installation of this device less bureaucratic, which now facilitates the implementation of 5G technology.

“5G networks are seen as an infrastructure with revolutionary potential, both for Industry 4.0 and for the adoption of new smart city services. Therefore, the importance of Curitiba being the first city chosen by TIM and Huawei to launch the 5G City project,” Greca reinforces.

Curitiba and other large Brazilian cities have priority in the installation of 5G infrastructure by telephone operators, which should take place in 2022. According to the rules set by the National Communications Agency (Anatel), 5G telecom service will start until July this year in the capitals. After that, the operators will leave for cities with a population of more than 500 thousand, and subsequently to smaller cities.

Connect 5G

The President of Curitiba Development and Innovation Agency, Chris Alessi, also highlights that in December 2021, Curitiba was the capital and only city of more than 500,000 inhabitants in Brazil chosen to test an unprecedented technology that would allow the implementation of smart 5G networks before the end of the first half of the year. 2022. “The capital has been selected to be part of the Conecta 5G pilot project, which is managed by the Ministry of Communications and the Brazilian Industrial Development Agency (ABDI),” she said.

Conecta 5G will allow Curitiba and four other Brazilian cities participating in the pilot project to install technology that integrates 5G antennas with smart public lighting, a solution to the need for a large number of antennas for 5G technology to operate in cities. “The technology that will be tested in Curitiba, in practice, turns streetlights into mobile antennas that spread a 5G signal like Wi-Fi,” Cris details.