19th May 2013

Samsung announces breakthrough in 5G mobile technology

South Korean electronics giant Samsung has successfully developed the world's first adaptive array transceiver operating in the millimetre-wave Ka bands for cellular communications.

This new technology will be central to 5G mobile communication systems and will provide data transfer speeds up to several hundred times faster than current 4G networks.

Future networks will require a broad range of frequencies. It was previously assumed that millimetre-wave bands would be impractical over long distances, due to extremely high atmospheric attenuation and other problems. However, the new adaptive array transceiver made by Samsung, which includes 64 antenna elements, has been shown to overcome loss of radio propagation. Data is transmitted over 2 km at a frequency of 28 GHz, much higher than conventional bands which typically range from several hundred MHz to several GHz.

In addition to speeds of 1 gigabit per second (allowing users to download an entire film in a second, or enjoy real-time streaming of ultra HD), 5G will provide a number of other features designed to improve reliability, compatibility, service and user experience. Samsung now plans to accelerate its research and development of 5G mobile and estimates it will be ready for commercialisation in 2020. Other regions too – including Europe and China – plan to bring these services to market by that year.

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