Good news! It's a visionary move.
With experience gained in 3G (TD-CDMA) and 4G (TD-LTE), China, South Korea and now Pakistan can work on the 5G standard setting and prepare for its supply chain in advance.
China Mobile Opens Asia's 5G Research Center | Light Reading
QUEBEC -- The countdown to 5G has officially begun following today’s opening of The 5G Development Centre at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan.
To achieve 5G’s anticipated speeds of up to 800Gbps and thousand-fold increase in capacity requires the development of a multitude of new components and techniques to improve spectral efficiency, accommodate more users and connected devices, increase data rates, and reduce power consumption.
Research at the 5G Development Centre will initially focus on:
- testing the Titan MIMO system developed by Nutaq Innovation
- verifying the conclusions of a recently published paper about hybrid beamforming algorithms for massive MIMO systems produced by the team at Nazarbayev University and their long-time research partners at the China Mobile Research Institute (CMRI). Massive MIMO has been extensively researched to date by a variety of individuals and organisations but not finetuned or tested in real-world conditions.
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) will also collaborate with the Centre which is supported by Nutaq Innovation Inc, a Canadian company which provides development, validation and test systems called Titan MIMO for 5th generation wireless technologies.
The 5G Development Centre is headed by Professor Corbett Rowell, the first Western Research Director at China Mobile’s Research Institute in Beijing, who has a long and successful track record in developing innovative techniques and technologies for wireless networks. Professor Rowell said “5G is not a straightforward evolution from 4G and requires a complete rethink of current practices. Although the industry has been talking about 5G for a while, current research is a couple of years away from completion. The 5G Development Centre will speed up the process and provide a central focus for 5G research in Asia.”
Academics and researchers from around the world are encouraged to take part in the Centre’s work, exchange information and share their own research by joining the 5G Ecosystem. 5G-Ecosystem.org - the largest professional community working on 5G and connecting on Twitter @5GEcosystem
The 5G Ecosystem Group will also be meeting at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, 2-5 March 2014. To receive more details and book a place please email info@5g-ecosystem.org
As part of its contribution to the 5G Development Centre, Nutaq will be providing Titan MIMO, the world’s most complete 5G testbed that can support up to 1000 transceivers (or antenna elements) and enables real-time, wideband, Massive MIMO implementation. The system also allows measurement in different channel conditions. In line with its mission for supporting innovation in wireless communication technology, Nutaq will also provide dedicated technical staff to support a joint research project with Professor Rowell on Massive MIMO and mmWave.
Huawei, Ericsson will go head to head with 5G demos at MWC - FierceWireless:Europe
Huawei's research and development (R&D) staff are gearing up to demonstrate breakthroughs in 5G air interfaces covering virtualised radio access and new RF technologies (most essential and significant element in developing the next generation networks, and that its heavy investment in R&D has paid off in the form of the new air interface technologies.) at the forthcoming Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, but rival Ericsson is keeping it in check with a new 5G test bed. Huawei's team developed self-adaptive and software defined air interface designs based on Sparse Code Multiple Access (SCMA)--a non-orthogonal access technology--and Filtered-Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (F-OFDM) technology. Tests of the 5G air interface design proved it can improve spectral efficiency, increase connectivity and reduce latency.
Huawei Named Key Member of New 5G Association, Announces Faster than 100 Gbps Speed Achievement at Mobile World Congress 2014 - About Huawei
Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, was named as a key member of the European Commission’s new 5GPPP (5G Public-Private Partnership) Association formed at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2014. 5GPPP is a flagship research program for the European Union’s "Horizon 2020" research and innovation framework. At the same time the company announced it had achieved a 115 Gbps transmission speed over the air with a 5G wireless technology prototype in one of its research facilities.
Key Breakthrough
The announcement of Huawei’s breakthrough 5G research achievement sets a benchmark for realizing the company’s vision of providing to individual mobile subscribers a fiber-like 10 Gbps speed, more than 100 times faster than what is currently possible on smartphones and smart devices. The 5G prototype utilized a novel transceiver architecture operating on the 70-90GHz spectrum band.
Advanced transmission technologies for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) were used in conjunction with an innovative multi-antenna precoding technology. The prototype demonstrated it could overcome out-of-band emission leakage for flexible spectrum utilization, while also reducing peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) for improved energy efficiency, which allows for longer terminal battery life.
The prototype also demonstrated a multipath-resistance, single-frequency full-duplex radio transmissions 5G radio architecture that will double spectrum resource savings and will start to unify conventional TDD and FDD spectrum usage for 5G.
Key Research
While the industry is in the early stages of 5G development, Huawei has made significant progress in 5G radio access innovation, and will play an essential role in shaping key 5G technologies. These include the 5G air interface, virtualized radio access networks and new 5G radio technologies to create adaptive and software-defined air interface systems that maximize spectral efficiency and minimize latency.
Proof of concept prototyping tests have been conducted on the novel radio waveform technologies for Sparse Code Multiple Access (SCMA) and orthogonal-free multiple access with variable sub-carrier technologies to extract extra capacity and spectral efficiency from hundreds of spectrum fragments.
A new 5G air interface will help networks better tailor solutions when implemented for Internet of Things (IoT) applications using ultra-narrow bands, and for virtual reality applications using ultra-wide-bands, among others. It will also help in building customized software-defined network structures to fit a greater diversity of innovative mobile applications.
Huawei has conducted numerous field trial tests on 5G software-driven base station nodes. These nodes utilize an original HyperTransceiver™ algorithm to realize cloud cluster processing with more than 400 sectors for the entire radio interface. An innovative virtualized RAN (V-RAN) concept has been developed that redefines the decades-old "user access cell" architecture and enables a "network follows user" capability without radio signal shadowing and mutual interference effects. When incorporated with user device self-networking, network spectral efficiency can be further enhanced by using an "Inverse-CoMP" (Coordinated Multi-Point) technology.
Huawei has been a pioneer in 5G ultra-fast wireless nodes and has championed the development of 50 Gbps to 100 Gbps base station nodes for cellular bands, and 100+ Gbps nodes for the 71-76GHz and 81-86GHz bands, that use a new digital radio front-end architecture. Efforts have also been made on its Radiotenna™ innovation, which is a complete integration of antenna and radio units by utilizing more sophisticated algorithms that will drastically increase spectral efficiency for cellular frequency bands as well as new higher frequency bands.
The company’s vision for 5G includes realizing ultra-high speed wireless nodes with an integrated transceiver architecture for both device access and node backhauling transmissions. Such capabilities will be necessary for a dense networking of nodes capable of delivering 1,000 times more network capacity. Ultra-high speed wireless nodes will first be implemented in backhaul networks to greatly enhance 4G and 5G user experience.
Key Collaboration
Huawei has collaborated extensively with principle industry stakeholders and major industry associations to lay the framework for key 5G technology research. Huawei is the steering board member of the European Technology Platform for 5GPPP and a key contributor to its seventh Research Framework Program (FP7) "Mobile and wireless communications Enablers for the Twenty-twenty Information Society" (METIS). The company is also a founding member of a 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC) in the UK, and has been instrumental in initiating, defining and setting up 5G research programs in China.
Huawei has been active in creating a global dialogue on 5G technologies, having held numerous 5G industry and ecosystem forums, including a "5G@Canada" and "5G@Europe" summit series. In early February this year, nearly 160 representatives from key 5G ecosystem companies attended a 5G@Europe summit in Munich, Germany. Attendees includes representatives from the European Commission, the European Telecommunications Network Operators (ETNO) association, ICT suppliers, leading European mobile operators, BMW, Fiat, Siemens, Rohde & Schwarz, and every key European research institute and university.
ICT Transformation
Huawei believes that 5G networks will emerge by 2020, and that 5G wireless technologies will not only substantially evolve telecommunications technologies, but will have a revolutionary impact on the global ICT industry. The advent of 5G networks will change our work and everyday lives and will usher in the formation of a new globally connected Digital Society. The ultimate success of 5G depends on a thriving ecosystem made possible by open innovation and collaborative research.
5G is on the cards for Huawei and partnered South Korean service providers - CNET
Huawei has partnered up with South Korean service providers SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus to deliver 5G technology.
Sanqi Li, CTO of China-based Huawei Products and Solutions, said the company has entered into close relationships with three South Korean telecommunication companies -- SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus -- to establish 5G networks.
Though there are no official standards governing 5G connectivity yet, early reports have pointed to speeds as much as 1000 times faster than current 4G networks by 2020.
At the closing ceremony of the Startup Nations Summit 2014 in Seoul, the Huawei CTO said the company would be working closely with the service providers on 5G, while it was still undecided as to whether it would build an R&D centre in South Korea.
"Though it is in its early stage, we are considering the possibility of building R&D centre in South Korea," Li said after the summit's closing ceremony.
Kevin Ho, president of Huawei's Handset Product Line, said that the company was planning to build its 16th R&D lab in South Korea at a press conference earlier this month.
Li denied that the R&D centre plan was finalized.
Li said the Chinese IT giant was engaging closely with SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus on making 5G a reality in the near future. "We talked about more engagements in 5G network R&D and Internet of Things, among other things," Li said.
