LTE-Advanced is only just arriving, but Samsung is already claiming to have made a preliminary “5G” breakthrough, achieving transmission speeds of 1Gbps over millimeter-wave bands.
The company announced it had developed adaptive transceiver array technology capable of operating in the Ka bands.
The technology circumvents the short distances and poor indoor coverage of super-high-frequency radio waves by using 64 antenna elements to overcome radio propagation loss.
With this transciever, the company was able to transmit data over the 28-GHz band at speeds of up to 1.056 Gbps and distances up to 2km.
Samsung aims to commercialize the technology by 2020, which would put it within the 5G timeline that UK regulator Ofcom is working from.
Japan's NTT DoCoMo is also seeking to help lay the early groundwork for 5G. In March, the operator announced it had completed an experiment during which it sent the world's first 10Gbps uplink packet transmission.
Samsung is part of a consortium investing in a 5G research center at the UK’s University of Surrey, which recently revealed its plans for a £35 million (€41.1 million) dedicated facility in the country.