Samsung Working with SK Telecom for 5G Data Speeds

Samsung and SK Telecom, a South Korean mobile operator, are planning to showcase current research into future 5G data transmission at 7.55 Gbps at Mobile World Congress next week. The transmission uses millimeter wave frequencies, meaning those over 6 GHz. The size of the frequencies is higher than mobile and Wi-Fi frequencies, and comes with some pros and cons.

The pros are of course related to the higher speeds achievable with the new technology, but the cons are the fact that higher frequencies will have a much harder time penetrating buildings and will be more likely to be obstructed or interfered with by obstacles. In order to combat this potential issue, Samsung and SK Telecom are working on technology that uses 3D beamforming, which senses the location of your smartphone and directs a narrow transmission to the device.

We can expect to see it implemented in South Korea in 2020, which is 2 years after Japan’s NTT DoCoMo’s planned network demonstration in Tokyo. If you’re wondering when we can expect to see it stateside, extrapolating our current rates of network expansion and speed improvements, we can expect to see it at least 10 years after that.

Source: PC World

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