Chinese network equipment maker Huawei Technologies Ltd. is pouring in $600 million into developing 5G technology and the company’s Ottawa research and development facility will play a key role in the big push.
Many industry experts believe 5G will not be rolled out until 2020, but Huawei is confident 5G wireless networks will be able to support data speeds that are up to 100 times faster than the current 4G networks.
In Canada, Huawei is collaborating with a number of Canadian universities on 5G related research projects. By the end of 2013, Huawei will have contributed more than $2m to research conducted by Canadian universities.
Huawei said its approach to developing 5G innovations will be “open and collaborative” and will involve working extensively with industry partners, global ICT organizations and universities. The company is hosting in Ottawa today 5G@Canada Roundtable, a one day event will feature discussions on 5G involving pioneers in wireless research from Canada, Europe and the United States.
“Huawei has a tremendous R&D effort in 5G research innovation,” said Dr. Wen Tong, Huawei fellow in a statement. “Today’s event is an opportunity to bring together some of the brightest minds in Canada and other regions to discuss both the challenges and opportunities presented by 5G.”
According to Huawei, it has been investing in 5G research since 2009.
The company also recently announced plans to pump in an additional $600 million for research and innovation into 5G technologies by 2018. Huawei believes that by 2020, 5G will be ready to deliver peak data rates of over 10Gbps, which is 100 times faster than what current 4G networks are capable of.
Other companies involved in separate 5G research include Ericsson LM and Samsung Technologies.
According to Vish Nandall, CTO of Ericsson North America, super high-speed will not be the only thing that 5G technology will deliver. He foresees 5G as a critical component in the so-called Internet of Thing (IoT) where many devices and services will be connected to and communicating with each other through the Internet.
In such a scenario, Nandall said, remote sensors for devices and machines that have medical of critical infrastructure tasks will require higher reliability as well as slow speeds to extend battery life.
Samsung believes 5G mobile broadband will be available to business and consumer users by 2020. In preparation for this, Samsung has been working on a new adaptive array transceiver technology, which it claims can transmit data in the millimeter-wave band at a frequency of 28 GHz at a speed of up to 1.056 Gbps to a distance of up to two kilometers.