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Building a new generation of mobile networks is too big for any one company, which is why many of the industries major players are teaming up on research and development, as you’ll have seen if you’re a regular reader, and now two of the very biggest companies in mobile have come together for a research partnership.
You already know from the title that we’re talking about BT and Huawei. The former, a major mobile and landline network in the UK, the latter, a maker of smartphones and mobile technologies out of Asia. Together, they’re going to conduct pioneering joint research into 5G, looking at how faster mobile communication technologies could be applied and the feasibility of deploying them.
Their collaborative research is being carried out at BT’s world-leading labs in the UK, and will cover various aspects of 5G, including network architecture, a new air interface between devices and base stations, machine-to-machine communications in Internet of Things (IoT) applications, security technologies and ‘network slicing’ - which will allow operators to divide up network resources between specific services.
The ultimate, ambitious goal held by Huawei and BT is to drive the development and standardization of 5G technologies, but if any pair can do it, it’s these two.
Gavin Patterson, CEO of BT said: “We are determined to maximise the potential of 5G for our customers, so collaborative research has a key role to play as the technology develops. This partnership with Huawei will see us explore the potential uses and make sure 5G is designed to meet the needs of our consumer and business customers throughout the world. “
“Huawei and BT have a strong record of collaboration when it comes to developing cutting-edge communications technologies, and we’re pleased to be building on that relationship to pioneer tomorrow’s mobile services.”
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