[ad_1]
Vodafone Spain delivered on its promise, delivered in Mobile World Congress 2022 end of February – beginning of March, to launch fixed wireless access (FVA) with 5G capability.
Service, branded Vodafone Hogar 5Gwill be launched next week (November 29) and is aimed at homes and businesses.
Using what the operator calls “install it yourself” and “portable” 5G router — connectivity will obviously adapt to the network coverage where the router happens to be, although “5G experience is guaranteed” in the principal residence of the client — Vodafone Hogar 5G will initially be available in parts of several cities: A Coruña, Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid, Malaga, Seville, Valencia and Zaragoza.
The aim, said Vodafone Spain, is to “progressively expand” FVA coverage for 65 more cities. No timeline was given for the rollout, but the coverage plan seems a bit more ambitious than what was presented MVC 2022. At that time, the operator predicted the coverage of 63 “cities” (places with a population of more than 100,000 people).
The operator said its 5G network will be available in 1,000 municipalities by the end of the year, reaching 46 percent of the population.
According to Vodafone Spain, its 5G FVA service will offer access speeds of “up to 1Gbps“and “easy to install” router — without the need for an engineer visit, the operator insists, just the insertion of a SIM card — will be able to connect up to 35 devices on the same network. According to local reports, Vodafone Spain, if it uses the 3.5 GHz spectrum, will be able to provide average FVA speeds between 300 Mbps and 400 Mbps. Operates on 700MHz waves, Vodafone Hogar 5G drops to average speeds of around 50 Mbps. Vodafone provides similar FVA services in other European markets, including Germany, Italy and the UK, as well as a predominantly 4G-based fixed wireless offering in Africa and elsewhere.
Broadband fightback?
Vodafone’s fiber-to-premises network reach is somewhat shorter than Telefonica’s (Movistar) and Orange’s full-fibre assets (even before the expected completion of its merger with number four operator MASMOVIL).
According to a Spanish newspaper ExpansionVodafone exceeds about 3.5 million homes with fiber, while Movistar has 27 million and Orange 17 million.
Vodafone also has a hybrid fiber-coaxial cable network, which covers around 7.5 million homes, but bandwidth is slower than full fiber and FVA. Vodafone Hogar 5Ghopes the operator will allow it to better compete in Spain’s competitive fixed broadband market, along with less reliance on margin-cutting wholesale cable purchases from rivals.
As of December 31, 2021, Vodafone said it reached 27.1 million Spanish households with fixed broadband services, of which 10.6 million were through its own networks and 16.5 million through wholesale relationships.
[ad_2]
Source link
