du and SES Demo First Satellite-enabled 5G Mobile Backhaul Network in the Middle East

SES and du from Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (EITC), a leading telecom operator in the United Arab Emirates, have successfully demonstrated the first satellite-enabled 5G backhaul in the Middle East utilising SES’s Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites, the two companies announced today.

The aim of the live demonstration was to demonstrate how SES’s current O3b constellation could extend 5G coverage to remote locations and support du’s enterprise customers including offshore energy sites with highly reliable, high throughput and low latency network connectivity.

The live Proof of Concept (POC) saw numerous tests conducted over an SES’s O3b satellite, including voice and data scenarios to measure quality of service performance and stress test load capacity. The low latency and high throughput 5G backhaul link showed O3b is an ideal solution for 5G satellite-enabled networks with Quality of Experience (QoE) at par with terrestrial backh...