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Photo published on July 22, 2020 shows a view to a site where Iran’s second largest mobile operator MTN Irancell launched a first lab testing site for 5G high-speed mobile internet in the Iranian capital Tehran.

An Iranian deputy telecoms minister says a first trial in the country for the high-speed 5G mobile internet technology has been successfully carried out in a laboratory in Tehran.

Sattar Hashemi said on Wednesday that the test conducted in the ICT Research Center in downtown Tehran had reached a speed of 1.5 gigabits per second (Gb/s).

"The 5G is a major improvement on 4G regarding the delay in sending information and we managed to reduce the delay by 5 to 6 milliseconds in this test," Hashemi told the semi-official Mehr news agency.

A separate report by the official IRNA news agency said the testing site had been launched by Iran’s second largest mobile operator MTN Irancell.

The report said Iranian President Hassan Rouhani oversaw the trial through a video conference call from his Cabinet session.

Hashemi did not elaborate on any exact timetable for rolling out the fifth generation of mobile internet in Iran.

He said high-ranking government officials would soon hold a ceremony to officially unveil 5G in the country and announce the terms of its regulation and pricing systems.

Previous statements by ICT officials have suggested that Iran’s largest mobile operator MCI would launch a first batch of 5G masts in at least six locations in Tehran by the end of summer.

Hashemi said the test trial in ICT research center would enable all stakeholders of the ethnology in Iran, including other mobile operators, to contribute to the project.

He said speeds of up to 20 Gb/s, which are much higher than the one reached during the Wednesday lab trial in Iran, would depend on various factors, including the size of investment in the project.

"However, the average considered for this (5G) will be a speed between 1.5 to 2 Gb/s," he said.

Iran has not disclosed any information about which global supplier it is using to launch the 5G mobile network. However, the MCI and other operators have been engaged in partnerships with major Chinese telecommunication companies in the past.

SOURCE: PRESS TV