New Zealand's Spark announced on Monday that Cisco is the first of several collaborators it will be working with to prepare and test the parameters for a 5G network in New Zealand.
Cisco and Spark will collaborate to develop a new 5G innovation hub. Earlier this month, Cisco signed an agreement that will see them contribute services, technology and capability to an innovation hub designed to develop, test, and prepare for 5G deployment in New Zealand.
Spark’s plans for 5G are progressing at pace. The company successfully trialled 5G in Wellington and Auckland earlier this year, achieving the highest speed of 18.23 Gbps – approx. 150 times faster than Spark’s initial 4G trial.
Spark is yet to finalise the network technology partners for its 5G network deployment.
Mark Beder, COO, Spark
The purpose of the 5G Innovation hub is to start planning and testing use cases that’ll help New Zealand businesses win big in a digital world.
Andrew Findlay, Sales and Operations Director for Service Provider, Cisco
The innovation hub will provide a collaborative workspace to allow local New Zealand companies to work with Cisco’s programmable networking technology within a 5G sandbox to explore new ideas.