Now that the hype over 4G has somewhat reduced, 5G is slowly becoming the new thing. Lots of claims are being thrown around by vendors and silicon companies, staking claim to having achieved to having found the new holy grail, aka 5G. On one hand we have WiFi chip manufacturers referring to 802.11ac as ‘5G WiFi’ (ever heard of 3G/4G WiFi?) while there are the likes of Samsung who has tagged a new mm-wave based transmission scheme as 5G.
Real work on defining 5G (or the nearest equivalent) requirements has just started in ITU Working Party 5D. If IMT-Advanced was the equivalent of 4G, IMT-2020 technologies are expected to be branded as 5G. At the next meeting of 5D to be held in a few weeks time, various organizations will present their vision of 5G, in terms of technical requirements. Hence, the flurry of whitepapers from vendors:
5G radio access – research and vision (Ericsson)
On the road to 5G (NSN)
Various global telecom standards bodies like 3GPP, IEEE have been asked by ITU to submit their inputs for IMT-2020 requirements. Within 3GPP, there’s an ITU-R Ad-Hoc Group which is currently discussing this topic and preparing an input (Liaison Statement in 3GPP jargon). More details about that in the next blog.
All About 4G 