Record-breaking
speeds have been achieved during tests of 5G data connections, scientists have
said.
Researchers
at the University of Surrey's 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC) managed one terabit
per second (Tbps) - many thousands of times faster than current data
connections.
The head
of the 5GIC said he hoped to demonstrate the technology to the public in 2018.
Ofcom has
said 5G could be available in Britain by 2020.
At 1Tbps,
it would be theoretically possible to download a file 100 times the size of a
feature film in about three seconds. The speed is more than 65,000 times faster
than average 4G download speeds.
It is
also far in excess of the previous best achieved in tests: Samsung's 7.5
gigabits per second (Gbps), which is less than 1% of the Surrey team's speed.
According to news website V3, 5GIC director Prof
Rahim Tafazolli said: "We have developed 10 more breakthrough technologies
and one of them means we can exceed 1Tbps wirelessly. This is the same capacity
as fibreoptics but we are doing it wirelessly."
His
research team built its own kit and carried out the tests in lab conditions
over a distance of 100m.
'Step
change'
It
remains to be seen whether it will be possible to replicate the speeds in
real-world conditions. Prof Tafazolli said he wanted to carry out more tests
around the university's campus before going public.
"We
want to be the first in the world to show such high speeds," he said.
The
regulator Ofcom has been supportive of efforts to get 5G to the public and,
last month, it called for input from the industry on how to go about it.
It has
said that 5G would be able to use very high-frequency spectrum - above 6 GHz -
to run a range of services - from holographic projections to financial trading.
The
regulator said it expected 5G mobile to be capable of delivering between 10 and
50Gbps, compared with the 4G average download speed of 15Megabits per second
(Mbps).
Speaking
as Ofcom launched its consultation in January this year, its acting chief
executive Steve Unger said: "5G must deliver a further step change in the
capacity of wireless networks, over and above that currently being delivered by
4G."
The breakthrough
by the 5GIC team brings that one step closer. But Prof Tafazolli said there
were hurdles to overcome before 5G would be ready
"An
important aspect of 5G is how it will support applications in the future. We
don't know what applications will be in use by 2020, or 2030 or 2040 for that
matter, but we know they will be highly sensitive to latency.
"We
need to bring end-to-end latency down to below one millisecond so that it can
enable new technologies and applications that would just not be possible with
4G," he told V3.
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