Samsung's '5G' still a while away

Rain challenge for high-frequency mobile broadband.


Samsung today announced a '5G data break-through', but the foundations underpinning the wireless technology are still a long way off.

The South Korean giant said it had carried out tests on wireless data transmission using microwave spectrum, and had reached more than one gigabit per second.

More significant than the speed reached is the use of the very high frequencies in the trials. Samsung achieved the speed using the 28 Gigahertz, which has very short reach or propagation compared to the 3G and 4G 850, 900, 1800 and 2100 MHz spectrum currently used in commercial network deployments.

Samsung acheived the reach with an adaptive array of transceivers, with 64 antenna elements. The company claimed that once commercialised, such technology would be capable of "ultra-high-speed data transmission up to several hundred times faster than even the 4G LTE-Advanced technology due for launch later this year."

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