Cellcard has today announced its successful trials in Cambodia of the first Standalone (SA) 5G site reaching speeds of 1.6 Gigabits per second (Gbps).
The site in Phnom Penh is Cambodia’s first real 5G site meaning it is end-to-end with 5G radio to a 5G core network and able to accommodate network slicing for dedicated use cases.
The Cellcard team has commenced extensive testing providing astonishing results across all indicators of upload and download speeds, latency, handover and voice quality.
Cellcard Chief Executive Officer Ian Watson said the trial was in readiness for the extensive 5G roll-out planned for early next year with key locations already identified in Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and Sihanoukville.
The company’s leadership into 5G follows quickly after its aggressive 4G LTE roll-out since January 2017, accounting for a $200 million-plus investment to accelerate mobile data access and usage across the Kingdom.
Data traffic over Cellcard’s network has in the past two years grown 1000% and the average daily usage has risen from 200MB to 600MB.
“Cellcard is serious about its commitment to leading the Kingdom’s digital future with 5G technology to advance society, economy and wellbeing for all Cambodians,” Mr Watson said.
“As the only Cambodian-owned proudly Khmer operator it is our duty to ensure that the adoption of 5G in this market has greater humanitarian impact and indeed improves lives.
“We see 5G as an enabler to improving living standards including health, education, and employment – all while supporting industries and the government to progress, and for the local economy to prosper.”
Mr Watson said the first use cases for Cellcard 5G would focus on Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) products and services for superfast content streaming and Virtual and Augmented Reality for education and entertainment, as well as smart home applications for security and efficiency.

He said Cellcard would then build on the more complex solutions for industries and government bodies such as Big Data, Internet of Things (IoT), and Artificial Intelligence.
The large-scale roll-out of Cellcard 5G in 2020 will coincide with the construction of a new world-class Data Centre in Phnom Penh as well as a wide range of advanced platforms and systems that will see Cellcard become the premium provider of Digital Lifestyle and Enterprise Services.