Intel Corp. announced a flurry of initiatives in Barcelona†at the Mobile World Congress today aimed at accelerating the creation, testing, and adoption of 5G wireless technologies. The new products and partnerships include:
- A series of jointly hosted 5G field trials with Verizon, Ericsson, and KT
- Collaborative 5G technology development projects with LG, Nokia, and SK Telecom
- The introduction of a new 5G mobile trial platform designed to simplify prototyping and testing of 5G solutions
- Five new modems optimized for Internet of Things applications, and the new Intel Atom x3-M7272, a wireless communications platform designed for use primarily in automotive applications
5G is a catch-all label for next-generation mobile wireless connectivity technologies projected to deliver dramatically better performance than the 4G platforms still reaching market today. Once available broadly, 5G will enable mobile users to download entire movies and other giant files in seconds. At present, however, experts don’t expect that milestone to occur until 2020. Intel’s announcements today are designed to hasten the 5G completion process.
“Billions of increasingly smart and connected devices, data-rich personalized services, and cloud applications are driving the need for smarter and more powerful networks,” said Aicha Evans, corporate vice president and general manager of the Intel Communication and Devices Group in a press statement. “It is essential to lay the foundation for future 5G networks now to make amazing experiences of the future possible.”
5G is proving to be an early theme of this year’s Mobile World Congress, a landmark event on the annual mobile computing calendar. Already, Samsung and Fujitsu have said they’ll be conducting tests of 5G technology in a town south of London by 2018, and Facebook has introduced the Telecom Infra Project, which seeks to bring network operators, infrastructure vendors, system integrators, and other tech companies together to rev up the rollout of 5G and other ultra-high-speed communication technologies.
Not addressed in either the Facebook or Intel announcements today, however, are two of the key issues that industry leaders must address before 5G reaches the mainstream: What portion of the radio spectrum will it use and what standards will manufacturers agree on to ensure their products and networks can all communicate with one another? Mobile World Congress presenters have until Thursday, when the conference concludes, to share evidence of momentum on those fronts.
