Optus advanced plans to launch 5G services in newly acquired mmWave spectrum, achieving peak download rates of 4.5GB/s in a live commercial network environment in a demonstration conducted with Ericsson and Casa Systems.

The trial employed Casa Systems’ AurusAI commercial CPE device on the operator’s commercial RAN, which was supplied by Ericsson. Optus previously achieved a speed of more than 5Gb/s in a controlled environment at its Sydney headquarters.

Optus turned on its first 5G mmWave sites in three cities a month ago using the 800MHz of 26GHz spectrum acquired in an auction in April.

The company said it deployed a total of about 1,300 5G sites across Sydney, Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Canberra, including suburban areas.

Lambo Kanagaratnam, MD of Optus Networks, said: “We can’t wait for our customers to start connecting to our mmWave 5G network as commercial devices become available later this year.”

Steve Collins, SVP of access devices at Casa Systems, said fixed wireless access technology plays a significant role in connecting communities across Australia, noting its “disruptive approach pushes the boundaries of 5G, opening up new services for consumers and businesses”.

Optus also announced it partnered with Ericsson to test dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS) between multiple radio access technologies, demonstrating the co-existence of NB-IoT and 4G with 5G using 700MHz spectrum.