Vodafone New Zealand to launch 5G this year

Vodafone has announced it will switch on a 5G network in New Zealand in December, beginning with Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown.

The company has already begun rolling out 5G in the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and Germany.

“Vodafone is already working alongside a number of business partners to understand how the power of 5G can improve the lives of New Zealanders,” said Vodafone New Zealand CEO Jason Paris.

“I’m proud to announce our first four partners, NZ Police, BNZ, Auckland’s Rescue Helicopter and Waste Management. They have agreed to work with us and our partners Nokia, Microsoft and IBM, to begin to scope their 5G future.”

Vodafone Technology Director Tony Baird said the potential applications of 5G are many.

“5G takes New Zealand beyond mobile and will accelerate Vodafone New Zealand’s leadership position in IoT,” Baird said.

“5G and IoT will enable hyper-connectivity between machines, smart devices and people. This means we’ll start seeing the development of innovative, intelligent processes and connected services that simply haven’t been possible or even conceivable until now,” he added.

“5G is also ideally suited for delivering fixed wireless broadband. This will be a great broadband solution for many more New Zealand customers than was previously possible, and will complement our ongoing investment in 4G, IoT and fixed network technologies.”

Part of the 5G network will be supplied by Nokia, in the form of it its AirScale radio access solution, cloud-native core and design services.

Pictured: Jason Paris and Tony Baird. Image courtesy Vodafone.

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