“The wireless revolution is remaking our civic and commercial life. To power our mobile future – and lead the world in 5G service – we need to free up more spectrum and make smart choices about infrastructure. That’s why this discussion is so important,” said FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel.

While last year’s event took place amid early prototype testing of 5G technologies and focused on building a sustainable and feasible vision for 5G, this year, as the first real-world trials are already underway, the focus has shifted to a discussion of commercial realities. Topics at this year’s event range from 5G spectrum potential and standardization efforts to understanding operators’ roadmaps for first-wave 5G services as well as enterprise challenges and how 5G can potentially solve these issues.

“Samsung is pleased to host an event that welcomes telecom and IT companies to share their ideas, build relationships and pave a path forward for 5G,” said Paul Kyungwhoon Cheun, Executive Vice President and Head of the Next Generation Communications Business Team at Samsung Electronics. “With many industry 5G events happening early in the year, the Silicon Valley Summit helps maintain momentum with a specialized focus on building and enriching the 5G ecosystem. We’re excited to see how the industry progresses between now and next year’s event.”

Samsung’s Silicon Valley 5G Summit event placed considerable emphasis on ensuring representation across the value chain, with presenters and attendees including major telecom vendors, pioneering mobile service providers from across the globe, government regulatory bodies, IT and application service providers, chipset and infrastructure component vendors, test equipment vendors, and potential end users. The event has representation from more than 40 companies, as well as keynote speeches from the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the UK’s Office of Communications (Ofcom) and The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).

Over the coming year, Samsung expects to see the first commercial 5G applications begin to roll out to support use cases such as fixed wireless access (FWA) and wireless backhaul. In parallel, members of the ecosystem will begin to demonstrate and trial additional use cases to advance the way that people live and work.

For more information on the Silicon Valley 5G Summit 2017, please visit here.

Frank Weyerich, Executive Vice President of Mobile Networks Products at Nokia, said, “Collaboration between vendors is crucial for 5G to enable new business in the mobile market and other industry sectors. The joint interoperability testing between Nokia and Samsung is an important step for making 5G work across networks and devices, fostering early 5G availability and success in the market.”

The two companies have been in collaboration talks since early last year and have since completed initial phases of interoperability testing. The compliance with Verizon 5GTF and Korean Telecom SIG specifications are a primary focus, and Samsung and Nokia will continue with lab testing throughout 2017.

Engineers from each company will work to ensure compatibility and performance between Samsung’s 5G Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) devices,  which provide home 5G connectivity, and Nokia’s AirScale radio access. These same devices are expected to see critical deployments in markets such as the U.S. and Korea throughout 2017 and 2018, to ensure wide scale commercial 5G deployments by 2020.

“With 5G, network architecture is becoming increasingly flexible in order to accommodate completely new use cases, such as Fixed Wireless Access,” said Paul Kyungwhoon Cheun, Executive Vice President of Next-Generation Communications, Samsung Electronics. “Ensuring that everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goals is a huge part of building a healthy 5G ecosystem. Samsung is building the infrastructure and devices to ensure an end-to-end 5G solution. While we are working with device chipset vendors to ensure the widest selection of devices for operators, we are also happy to work with Nokia networks to ensure operators can use our 5G devices freely.”

As 5G is expected to enable an unprecedented number of new use cases and exciting new services for both consumers and a range of different industries, the underlying technology is being designed from the ground-up to be both flexible and robust.  Developing to an industry-wide standard and a strong ecosystem will allow 5G to deliver on its promises. To this end, forward-looking companies such as Samsung and Nokia are committed to ecosystem-building activities that seek to maximize multi-vendor compatibility and deliver greater choice for service providers to build 5G networks that meet their individual market needs.

Both companies will continue to be proactive on interoperability including the adoption of 5G New Radio standards expected to be released by 3GPP beginning in 2018.

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Bringing together government representatives, mobile service providers, industry analysts and manufacturers, Samsung aimed to enable conversation and partnership-building to more efficiently catalyze the deployment of 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA). This technology is expected to help revolutionize all facets of human life in an age when people, objects and data systems are becoming increasingly connected.

In addition to a keynote on 5G spectrum and government enablement led by Julius Knapp, Chief of the Federal Communications Commission Office of Engineering and Technology, the summit also addressed the current state, challenges and requirements in creating business opportunities for 5G technologies.

Industry experts such as academics and eco-partners defined the key technologies for creating an aligned 5G evolution path, helping shape the end-to-end ecosystem through testing, verifying and optimizing radio frequency performance using 5G frequencies above/sub 6GHz. Session speakers reiterated the need for the creation of a strong and sustainable ecosystem for successful 5G implementation.

The Silicon Valley 5G Summit, which successfully kick-started the conversation to explore ways to implement 5G FWA, is scheduled to become an annual event. Through efforts like these, Samsung will continue to remain dedicated to advancing the digital industry and accelerating the transformation of 5G from a vision to a reality.

The Silicon Valley 5G Summit was held at Samsung Research America in San Jose. Silicon Valley was chosen for the location of the event because the area itself represents an ecosystem for high tech innovation and development where key players are creating an innovative digital society.

“The rapid advancement of today’s mobile communications is astounding with ubiquitous access to information and immersive multimedia experiences,” stated Yongje Kim, EVP of Samsung Research America, in the event’s welcoming speech. “By enabling eco-partners across the industry to share their experiences and knowledge at today’s summit, we wish to see progress towards a complete scene of 5G.”

Julius Knapp, Chief of the Federal Communications Commission Office of Engineering and Technology, led the summit’s keynote speech. He noted that the role of policy makers should be made to enable 5G services in the aspect of frequency assignment.

Representing a wide cross-section of interests and expertise, the Silicon Valley 5G Summit featured session speakers that addressed 5G pioneer opportunities and the expanding 5G ecosystem.

Paul Kyungwhoon Cheun, Executive Vice President, Head of the Next Generation Communications Business Team at Samsung Electronics, noted in the summit’s closing comments, “The collective intelligence we have seen today is the result of interaction between various industry segments, and I am confident that this will act as a catalyst in transforming 5G from vision to reality.”

Samsung Electronics today hosted the first Silicon Valley 5G Summit, held at Samsung Research America in San Jose, U.S. The summit, expected to become an annual event, brought together global telecommunications industry leaders from across the value chain to lay the foundation for an open end-to-end ecosystem for fifth generation (5G) networks.

More than 100 industry leaders gathered to discuss the opportunities and challenges involved in the commercialization of 5G technologies. The participants consisted of chip makers and other component manufacturers, telecom operators, universities, industry analysts, system vendors, investors, policy makers and measurement equipment vendors, representing a wide cross-section of interests and expertise.

The summit addressed the current status, challenges and requirements for creating business opportunities for 5G technologies. Government officials discussed the role of policy makers to enable 5G services through allocation of spectrum, while attendees examined the market outlook for new 5G service opportunities – including Fixed Wireless Access and the future of mobile connectivity services. Industry experts, including academics and eco-partners, held discussions on key technologies for creating an aligned 5G evolution path, helping to shape the end-to-end ecosystem through testing, verifying and optimizing radio frequency (RF) performance of 5G candidate frequencies above and below 6GHz.

“The United States was the first country to make broader ultra-high frequency millimeter wave spectrum bands available for next generation mobile wireless services. This was made possible through the swift action on wireless policy taken by the Federal Communications Commission,” said Julius Knapp, Chief of the Federal Communications Commission Office of Engineering and Technology, who delivered the Summit’s keynote speech. “Today’s summit will also accelerate 5G deployment and contribute to future wireless innovations for 5G and beyond.”

The summit consisted of session programs and an exhibition that featured a diverse range of ecosystem partners showcasing products and services. This summit program was designed to show the beginnings of strong and viable ecosystem that could support rapid 5G commercialization.

“We believe it is time to come together and shape the new era of 5G and, to that goal, it is critical to build a sustainable ecosystem by inviting all industry stakeholders to share their perspectives on how 5G will develop over the next few years,” said Paul Kyungwhoon Cheun, Executive Vice President, Head of the Next Generation Communications Business Team at Samsung Electronics. “The collective intelligence we have seen today is the result of interaction between various industry segments, and I am confident that this will act as a catalyst in transforming 5G from vision to reality.”

“5G technologies will help bring about many new and enhanced services. Looking at the current pace of the market, 5G Fixed Wireless Access commercial services could be available in a few years’ time,” said Daryl Schoolar, Principal Analyst at Ovum. “For 5G Fixed Wireless Access to be successful, it will need a robust ecosystem in order to drive innovation, keep prices down, and ensure a strong multivendor environment. Today’s summit was an important first to kick-start discussions dedicated to 5G Fixed Wireless Access and other 5G opportunities.”

For more information on the Silicon Valley 5G Summit, please visit The Silicon Valley 5G Summit.

To learn more about 5G Fixed Wireless Access and the path to 5G mobility, please visit ‘5G Fixed Wireless Access, providing fiber speeds over the air while also helping pave the way for full 5G mobility‘ co-published by Samsung and Ovum.