Some time ago, market research firm Super AMOLED's EDS Emerging Equipment Service Strategy Analysis Department predicted that the world's first truly commercial 5G mobile devices will not be officially available until 2020. However, Qualcomm does not seem to think so. This week, a senior executive at Qualcomm said in an interview that the first generation of 5G smartphones will be available for sale in 2019, and Qualcomm will provide the best 5G components.
Qualcomm's madness is not unreasonable. Although Qualcomm's newly released Snapdragon 835 processor-integrated X20 modem is still only 4G, Qualcomm has released its first product in its 5G modem family in October 2016: the Snapdragon X50. According to Qualcomm, this modem is an extraordinary milestone in the development of the 5G industry, providing unprecedented 5Gbps peak download speeds.
The key is that Qualcomm said the Snapdragon X50 5G modem is expected to be sampled in the second half of 2017, and will be available to suppliers who have orders to start developing 5G real equipment. Qualcomm even believes that the first products to integrate the Snapdragon X50 are expected to be officially launched in 2018.
What Qualcomm said is not wrong, but in fact, only 5G NR networks and devices can come in 2018, because 5G NR is completely independent of the intermediate version before 5G. So even in 2019, more Snapdragon X50-equipped devices are available for testing purposes. More specifically, such devices are limited to testing the 5G networks and specifications being developed.
In addition, considering the 5G standard participation of major manufacturers, including equipment manufacturers Ericsson, Nokia and Huawei, chip manufacturers also have Qualcomm and Intel, as well as operators and some mobile phone manufacturers are involved. Therefore, after Qualcomm is the first to release a 5G modem, other vendors will not sit still. For example, at CES 2017 earlier this year, Intel confirmed its 5G modem preparation, Nokia also said at MWC 2017 that it will develop 5G modems with certain mobile phone manufacturers.
Although the current 5G technology has been developed for several years and the specifications have been completely determined, the network spectrum allocation work of each country or region has not yet been completed. In short, in the end, only by 2020, the 5G network will be truly commercialized, and at that time, 4G and 5G will coexist. At that time, 4G will expand to the function machine, and the smartphone will gradually transition to the 5G network.
In this regard, the Secretary-General of the Mobile China Alliance, Laojiao commented, when the 5G smart phone is not listed, the key is when the 5G network is officially commercialized, and whether the flagship models of major brands can keep up.
As early as February 2013, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the Ministry of Science and Technology jointly established the IMT-2020 (5G) promotion group, relying on major special projects to vigorously support 5G technology innovation, and fully launch the 5G technology research and development test. The whole test is carried out in two steps: the first step of the technology research and development test will be completed in 2016-2018, and the second step will be the product development test in 2018-2020 to achieve the goal of commercial 5G in 2020.
In addition to national-level research, Chinese companies including China Mobile, Huawei, and ZTE have been actively developing and deploying 5G technologies.
On November 17, 2016, 3GPP RAN1 87th meeting of the 5G short code program discussion, China's main Polar Code (Polarization Code) program, from the United States to promote LDPC, France's main push Turbo2.0 two major competitors stand out 5G control channel eMBB scene coding scheme. Polar selection is regarded as an important progress in China's 5G technology research and standardization. Recently, RAN1#88bis held in Spokane, USA, identified the editor of the 5G New Airspace Standard Protocol. Huawei's Zukang became the head of the multiplex and channel coding standard, marking that Asia has become an important force in the development of 5G standards. The 5G standard officially entered the formulation stage.
Although there is still a period of time since the release of the first 5G technology standard in 2018, manufacturers and operators have begun 5G R&D and deployment. Korea Telecom (KT) has announced that it will complete its 5G network deployment by September 2017, and Japanese operator NTT DoCoMo will also test the 5G network in Tokyo this year. China Mobile, ZTE and Qualcomm recently announced cooperation and cooperation, and will launch 5G trials in China in the second half of 2017.
Recently, the 5G propulsion group released information that Huawei and Datang conducted the 3.5GHz 5G new air interface performance test and interoperability test with the instrument/chip enterprise in the Huairou field test environment in Beijing, respectively. The field rate and coverage test, the handover between the macro base station and the dense coverage small base station, and the coverage comparison for the future convergence network indicate that the 5G test enters the second stage system verification test.
According to the timetable published by 3GPP, the first version of the 5G standard (3GPP Release 15) will be completed in September 2018. The standardization and industrialization of 5G has entered the sprint phase.
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