UK Plans to Test 5G Mobile Network: Will 4G Soon Be Inadequate?
By David Tobia
October 12, 2012
October 12, 2012
- Consumers in the United Kingdom will have the opportunity to enjoy 5G speeds of up to 200Mbps by 2013, reports TechWeekEurope.
- The 5G trial will occur in the area from the University of Surrey to Guildford. The total area is about five square kilometers.
- “We have developed many technologies that are suitable for 5G using computer simulation and mathematical analysis and what this test bed allows us is to integrate all these technologies together and optimize them end-to-end and take them to standards afterwards,” explains Professor Rahim Tafazolli.
- Tafazolli’s team at Surrey believes it can achieve speeds four times as fast as 4G speeds. But such high speeds require a lot of energy, so Tafazoli also stresses energy efficiency as paramount to the project.
- “Every 10 to 20 years a new generation of mobile cellular standards will come up,” suggests Tafazolli. “Our proposal is about preparing the research development and standardization for the fifth generation, which is supposed to be deployed by 2030… Research and standardization needs to happen now.”
- In a related CNN Money article last month, head of wireless research at Bell Labs Tod Sizer suggested the still-budding new 4G wireless standard will be inadequate in just five years.
- “By 2020, industry analysts say the amount of cellular traffic created by smartphones and tablets will be dwarfed by the data generated from the world of connected ‘things.’ Shoes, watches, appliances, cars, thermostats and door locks will all be on the network,” CNN reports.
- The improvements are expected to be incremental. “5G won’t be about more speed, necessarily,” says Sizer. “It may be faster, but it will be more about meeting the expectation of service quality.” The 5G network technology will help prioritize all the things we’re attempting to communicate.
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