The Peninsula

DOHA: Ooredoo tested the world's first self-driving 5G connected aerial taxi at The Pearl-Qatar, yesterday. The automatic drone-like vehicle is capable to transport two people to a destination of up to 20 minutes away with a 130km per hour speed.

The taxi runs on Ooredoo’s 5G network, meaning there is no driver and can deliver passengers safely to their destination above traffic and other time-consuming obstacles.

Ooredoo also tested a number of other technologies including 5G Experience Bus and a 5G House Boat in different locations at The Pearl-Qatar. The event was aimed to showcase power and speed of Ooredoo 5G with Smart City technology that will be available in the future.

With the Ooredoo 5G Bus experience, passengers had the chance to test Ooredoo 5G while on the move and enjoy a super-connected commute. During the experience, passengers were connected to Ooredoo 5G with speeds up to 2.6Gbps.

To demonstrate the future of entertainment with 5G, Ooredoo set-up a futuristic 8K VR experience on a modern House Boat in The Pearl. The 8K VR test was ultra-realistic gaming and when connected to Ooredoo 5G offered a seamless experience with no buffering.

Talking about the event, Waleed Al Sayed, Ooredoo Chief Executive Officer said: “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 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,” added Waleed Al Sayed.

The Internet of Things era is seeing computers integrated into billions of everyday objects, which collect data and communicate real-time insights over ultra-high-speed 5G networks.

Qatar is staking an early 5G lead. Ooredoo was the world’s first communications company to launch commercially-ready 5G and is preparing 1,200 network stations to be 5G-ready.