While many of us are still trying to adapt to 4G in the Middle East, Samsung claims to have developed a new mobile data transfer technology that’s potentially up to “several hundred times” faster than current 4G networks. More precisely, the company announced “the world’s first adaptive array transceiver technology operating in the millimeter-wave Ka bands for cellular communications.”
Samsung’s latest innovation is expected to invigorate research into 5G cellular communications across the world; the company believes it will trigger the creation of international alliances and the timely commercialization of related mobile broadband services.
Samsung’s new technology, which the company plans to commercialize by 2020, sounds impressive when it comes to data transfer speeds. In its testing, Samsung managed to transmit data at a speed of up to 1.056Gbps to a distance of up to 2 kilometers.
The competition for technology leadership in next-generation mobile communications development is getting increasingly fierce. China established a government-led “IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group” for 5G research in February 2012, while the European Commission also plans to invest 50 million Euros in 2013 to bring 5G services to the market by 2020.
Once commercialized, 5G mobile communications technology will be capable of ultra-high-speed data transmission up to several hundred times faster than even the 4G LTE-Advanced technology due for launch later this year.
However, researchers have played down claims by Samsung to have developed “5G” mobile systems, pointing out that its tests only apply to one element of the system needed to implement a standard.
The key problem is that there is no agreed 5G standard – and may not be for years, explained Shahram Niri, deputy director of the 5G Innovation Centre at Centre for Communications Systems Research (CCSR) at the University of Surrey.
In the Middle East, Qatar’s Ooredoo telecom has recently implemented the 4G technology earlier this year.
