Whats next after 4G LTE? Why 5G of course. 5G will play an important role in the process of Industry 4.0. With its tremendous data capacity, a lot of telecom uses can be realized with 5G, such as big data analysis and real-time alarm, with which, the traditional manufacturing industry could put into practice its innovative automatic ideas and upgrade to a new efficiency level.
With high stability and almost-zero-latency, it will provide more possibilities for unmanned driving. The mature 5G technology will upgrade people-to-people communication to the smart connection of thing-to-thing and people-to-thing, thereby extending mobile communication technologies to a broader application field. In 2020, when 5G is designed to be fully implemented, and future, mobile healthcare, smart transport, smart homes , industrial controls , environment monitoring and other fields will develop with a great leap forward with 5G.
In Malaysia’s U Mobile is taking the next step for the future with a partnership with ZTE Corporation, to drive the development of pre-5G and future implementation of 5G mobile network technologies locally. Under the latest collaboration, U Mobile will be the the first telco in Malaysia to enter into the phase of 5G network development. The partnership will signify the telco’s ambition of staying at the forefront of next generation mobile technology and providing seamless and fastest internet connectivity to Malaysia consumer
Currently 70% of U Mobile subscribers are smartphone users. Looking at the recent consumer behavior study in early 2015, the Malaysian public spends an average of 3 hours and 39 minutes browsing the Internet for work, information, browsing and entertainment, which is ranked the highest in the South East Asia region.
With the agreement with ZTE, U Mobile is seeking to fulfill the implementation of pre-5G connectivity and lead the market on the adoption of 5G technologies that are able to provide ultra-fast connection speed and higher network capacity for consumer demands. After all ‘speed is king’ in the mobile connectivity arena.
Pre-5G is an intermediate level between 4G and 5G. The technology has the potential to offer speeds up to 10 times faster as compared to a 4G LTE network. It will be available earlier than 5G and is able to deliver a near 5G user experience.
While undertaking the research on pre-5G stages, U Mobile is also seeking to develop 5G core technologies that are still currently at an early standardization stage. Widely known to be the next generation of mobile network technology, 5G vision will support the capability of peaking download speeds at up to 20Gbps, which is 20 times faster than LTE-Advanced of 1Gbps. It allows users to download a High-Definition (HD) movie in seconds as compared to minutes needed on a 4G LTE network. When it comes to data capacity, 5G is able to offer up to 1,000 times more capacity compared to 4G. Packed with Gigabyte-size speed, high capacity and an ultra-low latency at 1 millisecond, the capabilities of 5G will be another gigantic wave to shake up the current telecommunication industry while shifting consumer behaviour and expectation on the demand of data allowances.
The collaboration between U Mobile and ZTE has been officiated through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which was signed by Too Tian Jen, Chief Technology Officer of U Mobile Sdn Bhd, and Steven Ge, Managing Director of ZTE Malaysia.
Following the signing ceremony, the management from U Mobile and ZTE travelled to ZTE’s R&D center and experienced the laboratory test of pre-5G testing using 2.6 MHz frequency. The R&D center was equipped with state of the art facilities and expertise specialized in the field to capture the potential of 5G networks.
“U Mobile is constantly exploring new technology that will provide best in class users experience to our customers. We see 5G technology as the technology that would support the ever increasing communication needs of the future. The collaboration with ZTE will also support our government’s vision of being a Smart Digital Nation by 2020.” said Too Tian Jen, Chief Technology Officer, U Mobile Sdn Bhd, during the signing ceremony.
Steven Ge, Managing Director of ZTE Malaysia, also commented, “ZTE is delighted to work on 5G technologies with U Mobile, the leader in network innovations in Malaysia. ZTE is making major investments in 5G to lead the industry in the research and standardization of this key technology of the future”.
