Research groups in China and South Korea are separately pursuing 5G development efforts in a race to introduce a network with augmented coverage and data speeds by 2020. Part of the work is forming alliances with each other, even taking the 5G race on a global scale as China and Japan look to follow South Korea in forging agreements with their European counterpart 5GPPP.

"The goal is to align 5G research, hopefully to make joint contributions to the future 5G international standard, and possibly set-up some joint research projects," Xiaohu You, chairman of China's National 863 5G Project, said in an email exchange with EE Times.

China led work on TD-SCDMA and TDD-LTE variants of 3G and 4G. It's "too early to tell" whether it will do the same in 5G, said You, who is also a professor at Southeast University in Nanjing.

In a presentation for China's IMT-2020 group that works on 5G, he noted that cellular and Wi-Fi roadmaps are both converging on millimetre wave technologies. That suggests separate 5G standards could emerge from IEEE and ITU groups, he said.

China's 5G Project consists of 55 members, including domestic companies such as China Mobile, Huawei, and ZTE, as well as local universities and overseas companies, including Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Solutions. So far, it has worked on a range of projects in enabling technologies and demonstrations, including work in millimetre wave bands.

"China universities started the study of upper GHz bands almost 10 years ago," You said. "In 2006, we held field trials of 4G systems working at 3.5GHz using distributed antenna technologies—the first in the world." Right now, "we are putting our attention on the radio technologies working at 6GHz—11GHz, and millimeter waves (45GHz—65GHz)—hopefully we will create a demo by the end of 2015."

You sent press a translation of an interview he gave to the Chinese press, in which he said 5G targets spectrum utilisation up to 100bit/s per hertz, using techniques like spatial modulation with multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) antennas.

"Large-scale MIMO is a pretty good case of using space resources, [promising to increase the] capacity of base stations 10 times," he said. "China's research on large-scale MIMO is leading the world."

He also said that more than 70 per cent of mobile data traffic is generated indoors. He proposed "distributing different frequencies" for cellular coverage, such as using "low frequencies for outdoor coverage and high frequencies for indoors."

Korea calls on 5G

Korea formally launched its 5G Forum in July 2012 and held its first summit the following May. It includes the local giants—Korea's cellular service providers, LG, Samsung, and the ETRI and KAIST research institutes—as well as representatives from Intel, National Instruments, and Qualcomm.

Youngnam Han, a KAIST professor who chairs the forum's steering committee, said in an email exchange that he hopes the group can help drive towards collaborations to a single 5G standard.

However, there are "many different situations in spectrum from country to country for the required bandwidth for 5G services, so there may be more than one global standard, considering millimeter wave technologies have such promising potential for 5G," he said. Certainly, "IPR issues will play the key role."

KAIST is doing its share of work on 5G, including validating channel efficiency in simulations using beam division multiple access techniques. In addition, it is collaborating with Samsung in work on 28GHz radios. Like its counterparts in China, it is also working on massive MIMO antenna technologies.

The local carrier SK Telecom also is exploring millimeter wave services, including the use of "hyper dense" small cell base stations and advanced antenna technologies. Like many others looking into 5G, SK sees a role for emerging work in software-defined networks and network function virtualisation.

By: DocMemory
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