5G is becoming a reality. Image: Sunshine Studio/Shutterstock
The final meeting of the 5G standards working group gets underway in Busan.
Samsung Electronics is currently hosting the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) to finalise the 5G mobile communication standards in Busan, South Korea, with the conference running until 25 May.
Around 1,500 standards experts – from chipset, equipment and handset vendors such as Samsung and Qualcomm, to leading mobile operators – are in attendance.
Commercialisation is imminent
Seunghwan Cho, executive vice-president of Samsung Research, said: “The first 5G standard, which includes innovative technologies developed by Samsung Electronics, will be completed at this 3GPP conference. This will lead the market to commercialise 5G communications to serve as the core infrastructure for the coming fourth industrial revolution.”
Among other things, the RAN4 working group will determine the radio performance requirements for 5G terminals and base stations, including the 3.5GHz and 28GHz bands. This will inform the radio regulations, an essential element for the deployment of spectrum once commercialisation begins.
Companies creating new products
Last December, 3GPP first approved the 5G Non-Standalone standard, which still uses 4G LTE as the connecting anchor for the new system. The standard will be completed at this meeting in Busan, with the Phase 1 standard being approved at the 3GPP plenary meeting in the US in June.
The decision reached in December incentivised companies to begin working on portable devices that can utilise the new system. This week’s meeting should nail down which technologies officially make the grade for the 5G standard in order to enable low latency, reliability and high-speed data.
Samsung has already received approval from the FCC in the US for an end-to-end fixed wireless solution, which is expected to debut with Verizon in the US in the final quarter of this year.
“The 5G era is approaching much sooner than the industry initially anticipated, which was the year 2020,” said Dongsu Shin, vice-president and head of the planning group for networks business at Samsung Electronics. “We will drive the supply of 5G equipment so people across the globe can experience services generated by this new technology at the earliest opportunity.”
