Qatar-based Ooredoo has acted to showcase the power of 5G to enable smart city applications with a trial of the world's first self-driving 5G connected autonomous aerial taxi.
During an event at The Pearl artificial island in Doha, Ooredoo also showcased technologies including a 5G experience bus to allow visitors to experience the potential of 5G while commuting and a 5G house boat.
The 5G connected aerial taxi is a large drone-like vehicle large enough to transport two people to a destination up to 20 minutes away at speeds of 130km/h. The autonomous vehicle runs on Ooredoo's commercially-ready 5G network.
Meanwhile Ooredoo's 5G bus experience provided passengers with the ability to browse the internet with 5G speeds of up to 2.6Gbps while in transit.
Finally the 5G house boat was equipped with 8K VR streaming gaming technology to demonstrate 5G's potential to usher in the future of entertainment.
“The Ooredoo 5G roll-out is growing daily, but as our customers cannot yet access the speeds and benefits of our ongoing investment, we wanted to demonstrate the true power of 5G and showcase what our technology will do for Qatar in the near future and in the years to come,” Ooredoo CEO Waleed Al Sayed said.
“Ooredoo is leading global Internet of Things innovation thanks to our world-class 5G networks and we are the clear partner for Qatar’s growing Smart City technological needs. Thanks to our Supernet network and IoT solutions, Qatar will soon be able to offer the futuristic experiments shown today to everyone connected to Ooredoo 5G.”