Chinese companies strive to lead development in 5G

Chinese telecommunications firms such as Huawei look certain to lead the development into 5G technology, if events at the 2015 Mobile World Congress (MWC) currently being held here are anything to go by.

With the Internet of Things (IoT) and the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) hot topics in Barcelona, it is obvious that the 4G network simply isn't going to be enough to carry the estimated 100 billion internet connections that are needed, something Huawei's acting CEO, Ken Hu has described as "a huge challenge for the mobile industry."

"Everything will be connected: our toothbrushes, our sneakers, glasses, watches...as well as forklifts and robotic arms used in factories," said Hu, stressing that 5G, with a capacity 1,000 times greater and an estimated 100 times faster than current 4G networks, can make that connected future possible, providing the speed needed for self-driven vehicles, for example.

Hu is not alone in thinking that way. Jurgen Escalon from Wibro Technologies commented to Xinhua: "obviously we are waiting for it (5G), in some parts we are still waiting for 4G to work but I think we are part of the business where this will help us to deliver. It's more mobile,"

Escalon expects companies such as Huawei to be leading the charge towards 5G, but admitted he hoped they would not be the only contenders.

"It looks like Chinese companies will be in the lead, but there are strong contenders in other parts too, so we hope the competition will help drive it faster," he said.

At the MWC, Huawei signed a collaboration agreement with Japan's major mobile operator, DOCOMO for both companies to test 5G remote access technology (RAT) in the latest of a series of agreements with countries from all around the globe. Huawei backed the commitment further, announcing plans to invest at least 600 million U.S. dollars in research and development in the technology over the next three years.

"5G development needs a standard to be defined, but as I see it, it's for supplying load for the IoT, developing to support the massive uptake of video on demand and to realize the extent and proliferation we are going to rely on mobile data to interact with our world. It is very interesting and exciting," said Colin Brown from Spark Connect in New Zealand, which has Huawei as their core provider.

"We are interested in seeing where the evolution takes us. We see China playing a big role on our part," he concluded.

Orlando Pereira from Paraguayan mobile operator, VOX, highlighted the role Chinese companies had already played in 4G development, and expects to see something similar in the case of 5G.

"5G is making very rapid progress, it is a relatively new technology and there is not a lot of information which has been made public," he explained. Pereira speculated it would "probably need a spectrum of frequencies and that is going to depend on the distribution in the world and in that we think that the Chinese companies are once again going to be important."

Hu agreed, having previously said the "telecom sector should open its doors and proactively embrace and dialogue with other industries to define 5G standards."

"Our ability to imagine the future is still quite limited, but we know it will be a super-connected and super-intelligent world and we are at the beginning of the beginning," he said.