The latest progress of LTE-5G deployment in Asia Pacific in July: 24 commercial 5G networks have been launched

Recently, GSA announced the latest progress of LTE-5G in the Asia-Pacific region in July.

Data shows that 165 operators have launched LTE (including full mobile networks and FWA broadband networks using LTE) in 49 countries/regions in Asia Pacific. The few remaining LTE "no spots" in the world (i.e. countries/regions with no LTE at all) can be found in remote areas of Asia Pacific. However, these remaining island regions have either planned LTE networks or have already started deployment.

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New LTE networks in the Asia-Pacific region in 2020 include TPG Telecom in Singapore, Rakuten in Japan, and Afgan Telecom (Aftel, Salam) north of Kabul, Afghanistan.

Currently, LTE FWA has been launched by 70 operators in 36 Asia Pacific countries/territories. This accounts for 60% of the region by country/territory.

Of those countries without FWA networks, operators in five other countries are known to offer MiFi-based broadband services.

Peak download speeds delivered via LTE FWA range from 5Mbps to >1Gbps. The average of these peak speeds is just over 100Mbps.

80 operators launched LTE-Advanced

LTE-Advanced networks were launched by 80 operators in 32 countries/regions in Asia Pacific. Recent operators launching in the region include: Veon (Beeline) in Armenia in 2020, Digicel in Fiji in 2019, Jazz in Pakistan in 2019. A further 6 operators are known to be testing/trialling, planning or currently deploying LTE-Advanced.

• Commercial services in the Asia Pacific region include some of the fastest in the world. At least 14 of them offer full Gigabit network speeds (maximum theoretical throughput) in selected cities/regions

Of these, two are known to be able to achieve Cat-19 performance (1.5 Gbps in DL) in selected areas. These are based in Japan and Singapore.

Investment in VoLTE remains strong

Investment in VoLTE continues to be strong in Asia Pacific, with 79 operators known to have invested in the technology in the form of trials, deployments or service launches.

VoLTE services are currently available in 29 Asia Pacific countries and regions with 65 operators. This accounts for 39% of all LTE operators in the region.

Recent operators to launch in the region include: Global in the Philippines in 2020, Robi Axiata-Airtel in Bangladesh, Telkomsel in Indonesia in 2020, TPG Telecom in Singapore in 2020. In addition, 12 other operators in 10 countries plan or are deploying services, and two more are conducting trials.

NB-IoT and LTE-M are in their early stages of development

NB-IoT and LTE-M are in the early stages of development in the region.

Nine countries have now launched both NB-IoT and LTE-M. Operators in a further six countries have only launched NB-IoT, and operators are in the deployment, planning or pilot stages in a further three countries.

Thirty operators in the region have launched NB-IoT services, and 14 have launched LTE-M services. Among them, 10 have launched NB-IoT and LTE-M. In addition, two operators in Myanmar and the Philippines are conducting NB-IoT testing and evaluation. In Vietnam, Viettel is deploying NB-IoT and LTE-M networks.

24 commercial 5G networks have been launched

The report shows that 24 commercial 5G networks have been launched in the Asia-Pacific region.

95 operators in 31 countries/regions in Asia Pacific are investing in 5G networks, accounting for 57.5% of the region’s mobile operators.

24 operators in 12 countries in the Asia-Pacific region have launched 5G services. In addition, DoCoMo Pacific has conducted two soft launches in the Northern Primorsky Islands and MegaFon in Tajikistan.

The number of active 5G networks has more than doubled in 2020. There were 11 deployments in the first half of 2020 alone, with a further three operators deploying in Taiwan in July 2020.

There are currently 69 other operators in 19 countries investing in 5G networks (including testing/testing and deployment).