Light Reading: AT&T, Ericsson & Qualcomm Get Ready to Test 5G Radio in 2017

AT&T, Ericsson & Qualcomm Get Ready to Test 5G Radio in 2017
Dan Jones, Mobile Editor. 1/4/2017

AT&T, Ericsson, and Qualcomm say that they are getting ready to test the initial 3GPP 5G New Radio (NR) specification in the second half of 2017.

The trio are preparing to test high-band frequencies for next-generation 5G technology, which should deliver "multi-gigabit Internet service" over the air. For the average Jane or Joe Blow on the street, this would mean an HD film downloaded wirelessly to their phone. Mobile 5G services are expected to arrive around 2020. AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) and Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ), however, are trying to push out fixed 5G wireless before that, with friendly trials expected this year. (See 5G in US: Will Spectrum Be the Speed Bump?)

Although 5G consumer services are still several years away, I'm glad to read that the big players in the business are far enough along that they will be conducting trials later this year.

Fortune: Meet Ericsson’s first 5G device

Meet Ericsson’s first 5G device

This 5G test device may be too big to fit into a car, but it’s already outperforming every 4G phone on the market today.

Telecom firm Ericsson is testing out a new 5G device on the streets of Stockholm, Sweden and Plano, Texas, that will revolutionize mobile technology.
...
Ericsson routinely clocks 2 Gbps in its outdoor tests. That’s already ten times faster than the 200 Mbps theoretical speeds available on today’s most powerful 4G networks, and it’s really only the beginning.
...
"This is not only yet another system for mobile broadband," says Sara Mazur, Ericsson’s head of research. "The 5G system is the system that will help create a networked society."

A fascinating look into one company's "5G" wireless research and a possible glimpse at what we can expect to see in a few years. Read the whole article for more interesting information about this new tech.

Wired: A Hackathon Where 2G-Era Tech Is King

Wired reports:

...
if you want to make smartphone applications that work for most people (not just most Americans), you have to think slow. Smartphones and the Internet are booming in the developing world. ... But the mobile Internet in the developing world is a fundamentally different beast than the one we typically talk about. That includes everything from the devices people use to to the plans they purchase, and the networks they run them on.
...
The most common smartphone in the world is, according to Ericsson, the K-Touch W 619. It has a single core processor, and a 3.5-inch display with 480 x 320 resolution. When you hear about the next billion people going online, that’s the kind of device they’re going to use to do it. What’s more, they’re going to run that phone on networks where traffic moves at kilobytes per second, not megabytes. In Ethiopia, for example, only 23 percent of network traffic can hit download speeds of greater than 1 Mbps; a mere 4 percent can upload at that speed. For bandwidth-hogging apps, this poses multiple problems. The first is that they may just not work. When phones are constantly trying to suck or push data to a network, and encountering problems doing so, it also eats up battery life. That’s a much bigger problem than simply needing to recharge your iPhone twice a day.

With luck, these app developers will also optimize their apps to use less CPU, less battery and less bandwidth on the high-powered phones used in the US. In the developing world, these issues may be business-crushing problems, but they're really annoying everywhere else too.