Poland’s Cyfrowy Polsat to launch 5G network on Monday

Poland’s Cyfrowy Polsat said on Friday its Polkomtel unit will launch Poland’s first commercially available 5G network in seven cities from Monday.

The launch of 5G is expected to offer data speeds up to 50 to 100 times faster than current 4G networks and help expand connectivity.

“We are implementing the first commercial 5G available here and now,” said Maciej Stec, vice president of the management board at Cyfrowy Polsat and Polkomtel.

The launch will make 5G available to almost 900,000 users of the Plus network run by Polkomtel on Monday, and over 2 million in the greater Warsaw region shortly, the company said.

5G has been controversial as the United States presses allies not to use equipment from Chinese telecoms firm Huawei , citing concerns Beijing could use the equipment for spying. Huawei has repeatedly denied the allegations.

Cyfrowy Polsat has previously said its network would be rolled out using technology from Nokia and Ericsson .

Polkomtel trades under the brand name Plus and competes with Orange Polska, Play Communications and T-Mobile in Poland.

―Reuters