Vodafone New Zealand trialled pre-standard 5G at its Auckland headquarters, demonstrating a range of applications including low-latency robots, live virtual reality performances and what it said was the world’s first gaming tournament over 5G.

The operator partnered with Nokia to deploy a pre-standard standalone 5G New Radio network operating in the mmWave spectrum band (above 28GHz). Vodafone said it plans to test the network in the 3.5GHz band soon. The tournament featured Vodafone staff and one of Australasia’s top pro League of Legends teams, and was broadcast to thousands of fans through the e-sports platform Twitch.

Vodafone chief executive Russell Stanners said: “Today’s 5G event is about showcasing how we can easily evolve our existing 4G and 4G+ networks to 5G, and in doing so, prepare our customers and the country for the high-speed, low-latency applications expected in a future 5G world.”

The operator held the one-day showcase to highlight the future possibilities of 5G networks.

Last week rival Spark claimed to have turned on the country’s first live 5G mobile test site, achieving speeds of more than 9Gb/s at the location in capital city Wellington.