RIGA, July 19 (Xinhua) -- Latvia's leading mobile operators launched their 5G services this week, with Latvijas Mobilais Telefons (LMT) unveiling its 5G network on Friday and Tele2 putting its first 5G base station into operation on Thursday, the teleco's representatives informed.
Representatives of Latvia's oldest mobile operator LMT said a 5G network is available in Latvia's southwestern city of Liepaja as of this week. On Friday, LMT also presented a Latvian-made 5G rooter, developed by MikroTik company in collaboration with LMT.
Last September, LMT presented the first test 5G network in Latvia at the 5G Techritory forum in Riga. The test network showed a data transfer speed of 1.4 Gbps and 4 milliseconds latency.
Tele2, meanwhile, said its first 5G base station would initially provide 5G communication services to its clients in the area of the Mukusalas business center in Riga. The mobile operator's representatives said the 5G base station is fully integrated with the Tele2 main network which is indispensable for its functioning. Tele2 plans to install a few more 5G stations in Latvia by the end of this year.
Bite, a mobile operator which is planning to develop its 5G network in Latvia in collaboration with China's Huawei, has been working on the new network for at least five or six years and launched its first 5G base station in test mode in June, Bite representatives said.
They indicated that the development of 5G services will largely depend on the availability of devices supporting the 5G technology. Bite expects the first 5G-capable devices to appear in Latvia this fall or year end.
