“5G will be a crucial pillar of the UK’s economy in the 2020s. The smarter network infrastructure and an enhanced ability to support exponential scale for connectivity will open the doors to further applications across a variety of markets such as IoT, industrial applications and the full promise of autonomous vehicles,” said Simon Beresford-Wylie, CEO of Arqiva. “Our trial with Samsung will demonstrate the enormous potential of 5G FWA as an alternative to fibre for delivering ultra-high speed connectivity to homes and businesses.”

The trial is set to take place in the second half of 2017 in London and will involve the deployment of an end-to-end 5G FWA solution network in the city centre, operating in the 28 GHz band. Samsung’s 5G Access Units (the base stations) leverage high-frequency millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum and advanced technologies such as beam-forming, to provide high-density coverage and ultra-high-bandwidth connectivity to CPEs (or Customer Premise Equipment) installed in nearby homes or offices. mmWave is ideal for 5G Fixed Wireless Access-type services as it allows operators to leverage the underused spectrum available in the bands above 6GHz and deliver competitive broadband service to a wider population in significantly less time.

Samsung’s compact 5G Access Units are designed for easy and rapid deployment, while the CPE is user-installable and can bring a subscriber online in a matter of minutes. This gives 5G Fixed Wireless considerable advantages over comparable FTTH or FTTB (Fiber-to-the-Home/Building) deployments in terms of service rollout times and the costs to both the service provider and the subscriber. At the same time, the service is robust – able to deliver gigabit broadband speeds to entire neighbourhoods – and can very easily be extended to support new services in the future.

Arqiva is uniquely positioned within the UK due to its significant infrastructure assets, including mobile sites and lampposts that can be used to install the 5G Access Units. This places Arqiva in a pioneering position to lead upcoming 5G deployments.

“With advanced news of 5G trials already being made in the US and Korean markets, we’re really excited to be partnering with Arqiva to jointly demonstrate just how important Europe is to the 5G revolution,” said Thomas Riedel, Head of Samsung Networks Europe. “There is so much opportunity in the region due to the diversity of markets and services already in place here, and we think the UK is a prime candidate to show off the benefits that 5G can bring to consumers here.”

The two companies believe that the UK serves as an ideal starting point for 5G technology introduction within Europe. This is in large part due to the country’s low broadband penetration and promising spectrum conditions combined with its diverse and advanced service economy that is ideally suited to exploring new connected use cases.

For more information on this press release including photos, videos and relevant Samsung Newsroom articles, please visit news.samsung.com/global.  Samsung’s booth at MWC is located at the Exhibit Hall 2 Stand 2M10 in Fira Gran Via, open from February 27th to March 2nd, 2017.

About Arqiva

Arqiva is a leading UK communications infrastructure and media services provider dedicated to connecting people wherever they are through the delivery of TV, radio, mobile and the Internet of Things (IoT). We are an independent provider of telecom towers, with circa 8,000 active sites across Great Britain, and are also the only supplier of national terrestrial television and radio broadcasting services in the UK. Our advanced networks support the exponential growth of connected devices and the ever-increasing demand for data from smartphones to tablets, connected TVs, smart meters, cars and medical devices.

For more information, news and insights from Arqiva, please visit the website at: www.arqiva.com

“The White House initiative provides an ideal platform for Samsung to help create a blueprint for the future of communications network development through collaboration with a diverse range of experts,” said Charlie Zhang. Vice President, Samsung Research America. “Supporting U.S. wireless leadership and next generation networks continues to be a priority for Samsung, and we look forward to helping expedite 5G innovation to enable more people to benefit from the next level of enhanced communications.”

With the AWRI, Samsung will provide guidance and assist in the development of new wireless testbeds, enabling researchers to examine and validate 5G technologies, spectrum usage paradigms, application performance and service behavior. As a board member, Samsung will also provide direction on future research initiatives.

Pioneering 5G Innovation

Samsung brings over 35 years of experience in developing innovative mobile telecommunications technologies and plays an active role in working with international standards organizations on standardizing 5G network development. The company has driven a wide range of 5G breakthroughs in the mmWave spectrum including:

• In 2013, Samsung recorded the world’s first gigabit per second throughput benchmark to a distance up to 2 kilometers using next-generation prototype technologies in mmWave spectrum.
• In 2014, Samsung set a speed record at 7.5Gbps in a stationary environment and became the first to demonstrate stable and uninterrupted mobile connections at 1.2Gbps from a vehicle traveling at over 100km/h.
• In March 2016, Samsung announced the success of world’s first multi-cell handover maintaining a gigabit data transmission, demonstrating a vehicle-in-motion maintaining a gigabit data transmission while moving between three transmitters.
• Recently, Samsung developed 5G-ready antenna and power amplifier technologies enabling smaller, more energy efficient 5G equipment and devices using 28GHz millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum.

For more information, please visit here.

To discuss 5G wireless communications technology standards, Samsung Electronics is hosting a 3GPP* RAN1** meeting for five days in Busan, Korea. The international meeting, which commenced on April 11, brings together about 400 technology experts from 80 telecommunications businesses to begin the standardization of 5G technologies in earnest.

3GPP first began to discuss the 5G standardization schedule at the 3GPP RAN 5G Workshop held in Phoenix last September. The meeting will serve as the starting point of 3GPP’s in-depth research on 5G candidate technologies.

During this meeting, 3GPP members will discuss ways to support the effective integration of new services such as IoT (Internet of Things) into 5G, and measures to ensure the compatibility of the 5G technologies. 3GPP will conduct research in these areas until next June and plans to complete the first standardizations for 5G by June 2018.

Samsung began its development of 5G technology in 2011 and successfully carried out the world’s first Gigabit (1.2 Gbps) data transmission in the millimeter-wave band in 2013. Since then, the company has continued to prove its technology leadership in 5G by achieving the world’s first 1.2 Gbps connection in a mobile environment from a vehicle travelling at 110 kilometers per hour; the fastest 5G data transmission rate while stationary (7.5 Gbps); and the world’s first handover technology that transfers 5G mmWave data connections from one base station to another.

In addition, Samsung continues to be actively engaged in a range of key global 5G research initiatives and leads multiple collaborative projects with its industrial partners, academic partners and operators around the world. Holding 17 percent of the total LTE and LTE-Advanced standard-essential patents (SEP), Samsung ranks at the top of 35 major telecommunications businesses. (Source: “2014 Results of Research on Telecom Technology Patent Trends and Patent Litigation Analysis,” Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO), April 2015.)

*3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) is the world’s most influential project to standardize telecommunications technologies.

**As one of the core tech groups in 3GPP, RAN (Radio Access Network) is in charge of terminal-base station interface standards.