The UK is almost ready to flip the switch on its first LTE network, but it’s determined to be at the forefront of the next-generation, setting up a “5G Innovation Centre” at the University of Surrey.
The government announced it’s putting up £11.6 million in funding, but another £24 million will be coming from an industry group comprising the likes of Huawei, Samsung, Telefonica, Rohde & Schwarz, Fujitsu and others. The money will allow research to go beyond concept and theory, with the aim that all partners work together to develop and standardise 5G technology, which the university has been looking into for a number of years already.
They will focus on energy and spectrum efficiency as well as speed, and although it’s early days, 10Gbps has been banded around as a per-tower target, translating to roughly 200Mbps for each connection. Unfortunately, we’ve also got a number to kill your geek buzz – it’s upwards of a decade away.
Source: [Engadget]
