University of Surrey is to research 5th generation mobile phone technology as part of 35m pounds project funded by the UK government and industry partners.
The new 5G research centre will be funded by 11.6m pounds in government money and around 24m pounds from a consortium of operators and infrastructure providers including-Huawei,Samsung,Telefonica Europe,Fujitsu Laboratories Europe,Rohde&Schwarz and AIRCOM International. The centre will carry out research into proposed 5G standards in the UK.Significantly,it will also link to the new satellite communications developments,which are already taking place at the University.
"This is a major coup for the University,its industry partners and the economy,"said Professor Sir Christopher Snowden,resident and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Surrey.
The government hopes the research centre will re-build the UK's position in developing network technology for next generation mobiles. UK research labs led the world 10 years ago,but have missed out on the design of 4G systems.
"Although the UK played an active role in the creation of 2G(GSM)cellular standards,it has increasingly fallen behind in succeeding generations 3G and 4G standards,"said Professor Rahim Tafazolli, who also heads up the University of Surrey's Centre for Communication Systems Research(CCSR).
"The University's industry partners have identified this proposal as the single biggest opportunity for the UK to regain a world leading position in the development of 5G technologies and for the development of vibrant businesses around the technologies,"said Professor Tafazolli.
The new 5G Centre of the calibre set out in our bid will enable the UK to lead this rapidly expanding segment of the global digital economy,"said Professor Snowden.
"There are massive challenges and opportunities facing the sector.Mobile communications data traffic is expected to increase 1,000 fold by 2020,by which time there will be an estimated at least 50 billion Internet-capable devices,said Professor Tafazolli.
Such unprecedented data traffic growth requires the urgent introduction of new 5G advanced technologies that maximise the use of the limited available radio spectrum,said Professor Tafazolli.
