Samsung claims “5G” first

5G Phone

Samsung has developed technology to supposedly support ”5G” mobile networks which it said can deliver speeds “up to several hundred times faster than even 4G LTE-Advanced technology”.

Mobileworldlive.com reports that Samsung plans to commercialise the 5G technology by 2020.

The company claims to have built the world's first adaptive array transceiver for the millimetre-wave Ka band, which could eventually become central to 5G. However, no official standard has yet been set to define exactly what makes up 5G technology and clarification is unlikely to arrive before the next World Radiocommunication Conference in 2015. Until then, talk of '5G' technology progress is arguably being driven more by marketing desire than R&D.

Samsung says its adaptive array transceiver technology uses 64 antenna elements, making it a viable solution for the radio propagation loss in millimetre-wave bands. The technology can transmit data at a frequency of 28GHz at up to 1.056Gb/s over a distance of 2km.

Chang Yeong Kim said the development of the transceiver has brought Samsung “one step closer to the commercialisation of 5G mobile communications”. The company hopes it will lead to international alliances and commercialisation of related mobile broadband services.

The industry has already begun jumping on the 5G bandwagon; last October Huawei and Samsung were amongst companies that gave their backing to development of a 5G R&D centre in the UK.