In Greek mythology, Metis was a cunning and wise Titan goddess capable of prophesying. In modern times, METIS is a research project being partially funded by the European Commission with an eye toward enabling its vision of the 5G future.
Nearly one year after its November 2012 creation, the METIS 2020 project has laid out wireless scenarios that it hopes to address and specified the capabilities it expects of 5G networks. Speed-wise, 5G is expected to deliver data at 10 to 100 times the current typical user data rate and provide a five times reduction in end-to-end latency.
Afif Osseiran, METIS project coordinator, recently told me discussions regarding key technology components for 5G networks are in the early days, though he expects the picture will clear by mid-2014. That will suit the timeline for METIS, which intends to wrap up its research by May 2015 so it can provide input into Europe's strategy for the World Radiocommunication Conference 2015 (WRC-15), scheduled for November 2015 in Geneva, Switzerland.
Osseiran works for Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC), which is spearheading the METIS effort. Other top infrastructure vendors in the METIS consortium include Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU) and Nokia (NYSE:NOK) Solutions & Networks (NSN) as well as China's Huawei.
No doubt the concept of 5G means very different things to different companies and world regions. But METIS has some ballast thanks to the wireless industry heavyweights involved with it, which is why FierceWirelessTech recently took a deeper look into the project and its objectives.--Tammy
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