AUSTIN, TEXAS – With an industry target of 2020 to unleash “5G” on the world, the race to set 5G standards is ramping up. It’s still too early to tell which technologies will prevail, but one thing is for sure, everyone is paying close attention.
“It’s sort of an arms race where ‘company X’ wants to be the first to prove a particular technology and the way to prove that is through prototyping,” James Kimery, director of marketing at National Instruments, said in an interview at the IEEE GlobeCom conference in Austin.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sOfZpAetyA]
Many companies at the IEEE GlobeCom conference were perhaps feeling the heat of the arms race and were eager to demonstrate their latest 5G prototype.
One of the future standards that National Instruments was testing at the conference was physical layer waveforms. They were the first to demonstrate in real time the difference in video quality between GFDM, a new waveform competing to set the standard for 5G, and OFDM, the current 4G standard.
You can see the results of the demonstration in this video.
Kimery said of the purpose of the demonstration,”The research for 5G is looking at new waveforms basically to address some of the deficiencies of OFDM.”
And, like so many other standards, the battle is just beginning. It isn’t just one technology competing for 5G waveform supremacy, Kimery mentioned a handful of others that he feels could be equally viable options including UFMC, multicarrier filter banks, millimeter waves and massive MIMO.
With so many competitors still in the ring, this battle is far from over.
“The company that is there first that can demonstrate with the prototype, that is where the benefit is for them, to be able to prototype faster and prove that.”
But in the end, Kimery believes that when the final bell rings, it could be a combination of these technologies that will eventually win out.
For example Kimery said, “So you’ll see, GFDM might be working with massive MIMO, which ultimately might be working with millimeter wave.”
For more demonstrations from National Instruments and others, as well as much more multimedia content from the IEEE GlobeCom conference, check out the RCR Wireless News’ youtube page.
And for a wrap-up of all the sights and sounds of the conference check out this video.
