SHANGHAI, September 27 (Itar-Tass) - The first high-speed wireless networks, using the fifth generation (5G) technologies, may appear in 2018, Ying Weimin, President of GSM, UMTS and LTE Network of China’s Huawei Technologies, told reporters on Friday.
According to him, the commercialization of this technology, which will come to replace the 4G (LTE) technology that is being actively implemented worldwide, will begin after 2020. “This is a very serious challenge, the gap between 4G and 5G is quite large. Various concepts for the further development of this technology are currently under consideration,” said Ying Weimin. He added that the introduction of the fifth generation communication may require reconsideration of the existing network architecture and redistribution of the frequency spectrum.
The fifth generation of mobile wireless communication is expected to help cope with the increasing workload, which will appear after the mass transition to 4G. This communication standard allows users to access high-speed Internet, providing new multimedia solutions in the network. Mobile communication technology in the world is developing quite rapidly: for example, the 4G (LTE) network appeared in 2010, and more than 200 commercial networks are operated at present. This year was a period of intensive LTE technology development. A total of 443 operators around the world make investments in this technology. Huawei has signed 196 contracts for the implementation of the LTE commercial networks and has already launched 93 commercial LTE networks in different countries.
Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, is the world’s largest telecom equipment maker and China’s largest telephone-network equipment maker. As of 2008, Huawei ranked first in terms of global market share in the mobile softswitches market, tied with Sony Ericsson for lead market share in mobile broadband cards by revenue, ranked second in the optical hardware market, stayed first in the IP DSLAM market, and ranked third in mobile network equipment. In 2009, Huawei was ranked No. 2 in global market share for radio access equipment. In addition, Huawei was the first vendor to launch end-to-end (E2E) 100G solutions, enabling operators to establish enhanced ultra-broadband networks, improving their service and simplifying their network architecture. According to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), on 27 January 2009, Huawei was ranked as the largest applicant under WIPO's Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), with 1,737 applications published in 2008. Overall, the total number of international patent filings under WIPO's PCT for 2008 represents the highest number of applications received under the PCT in a single year and China improved its ranking by one place, to become the sixth largest user of the PCT, with 6,089 filings. As of February 2011, Huawei has applied for 49,040 patents globally and has been granted 17,765 to date.
Huawei Technologies currently holds about 40 percent of the global market of the LTE networks. The company’s investment in research and development, according to the company representative, reached 4.8 billion US dollars a year.
Huawei, in particular, cooperates with Russia’s telecommunications companies that provide LTE mobile services. The frequency spectrum allocated to Russia for this technology, Ying Weimin believes, is not very convenient from the point of view of the country’s territory. “In the future, possibly through the use of new bands, such as 800 MHz, the coverage will be improved,” he said. “In addition, we hope that within two years the price of LTE smartphones will significantly drop, which will also encourage the development of the networks.”
Huawei, according to experts, is just beginning to create a line of LTE- smartphones, it has already made one such device. In 2014, all the smartphones of this manufacturer are expected to support this technology. The future, according to the company representative, belongs to devices with a larger screen for a better visual experience.