Last week 5G Americas welcomed Samsung Electronics America as a new member of the wireless industry trade association. This is the first time Samsung Electronics becomes a part of the organization, which was previously known as 3G Americas which then became 4G Americas, before it was renamed to 5G Americas in 2016 in order to reflect the group’s new interests in expanding 5G technologies across the region.
Up until now, Samsung Electronics had no ties with 5G Americas, despite the fact that the South Korean tech giant already is a member of various organizations whose goals are to push 5G networking into the mainstream. This changed last week when 5G Americas welcomed Samsung Electronics to its board of governors. 5G Americas President Chris Pearson said in a press release that Samsung Electronics’ achievements and expertise in the wireless ecosystem will be of value in advancing the next generation of wireless technologies. As a new member of 5G Americas, Samsung Electronics joins forces with a wide list of partners who are also part of the wireless industry trade association, including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Qualcomm, Intel, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, Ericsson, América Móvil, Cisco, CommScope, Entel, Kathrein, Mitel, and Telefónica. It’s also interesting to note that although Samsung Electronics has been conducting 5G tests and trials on US soil in collaboration with Verizon Wireless, the country’s largest carrier is not a member of the 5G Americas organization. Whether or not this will change remains to be seen, however, as stated by President Chris Pearson, 5G Americas doesn’t make guesswork in regards to whom might apply to join the organization and whom might be a valuable asset. Nevertheless, the organization is always open to new members.
5G networking represents a very important step in the evolution of communications, more so than any other prior advancement in mobile networking. This is due to the fact that 5G networking opens up new opportunities beyond traditional mobile networks, and can become the backbone of various technological advancements including automation, self-driving cars, and everything encompassed by the Internet of Things. Samsung Electronics has been working on researching and developing 5G technologies for nearly half a decade, and more recently, the company’s latest efforts in this area led to the unveiling of a handful of 5G products at Mobile World Congress 2017. During the same event, Samsung Electronics also demoed 5G Guaranteed Latency (GLA) as an end-to-end network slicing solution in collaboration with Deutsche Telekom.