[Video] Samsung’s Latest 5G Milestone: Multi-cell Handover

Samsung Electronics is continuing its efforts to pioneer the next generation of mobile telecommunications, 5G, with its latest achievement: the first multi-cell handover in March, 2016. As demonstrated in the above video, a vehicle traveling at 25 kilometers per hour was able to move between three transmitters, maintaining a gigabit data transmission.

Rather than blanket the area with each radio signal, as current telecommunications do, Samsung’s approach to 5G uses adaptive beamforming technology to tightly focus the radio waves into a beam that is targeted at each user’s device. Narrow, directly focused beams help overcome the inherent limitations of the ultra-high frequencies used for 5G, which have shorter transmission ranges and naturally suffer from greater signal loss. The need to precisely manage beamforming during handover adds additional complexity to the transition process – a challenge that Samsung has now completely overcome.

With Samsung demonstrating the ability to handover between base stations in a moving vehicle while maintaining transmission speed, the future of 5G has moved significantly closer to reality.