Qualcomm on Wednesday detailed what it deems is “the next phase” of the path to the commercialization of the fifth generation of mobile networks and the technologies expected to be enabled by what most industry watchers describe as a new wireless revolution. All of the new solutions demonstrated by the company have been based on the first implementable 5G standard completed by the 3GPP in late December as its Release 15, with Qualcomm also contributing to the standardization process. As such, the technologies are also expected to pave the way for research and development aimed at defining the upcoming Release 16 standard.
Qualcomm’s offerings demonstrated earlier this month span a wide variety of solutions, though the majority of them is meant to directly benefit the mobile ecosystem. The San Diego, California-based semiconductor giant showcased a spatial domain spectrum sharing solution devised to offer increased throughput and capacity by bringing the coordination among connected clients to a higher level, regardless of whether they use shared or unlicensed spectrum bands. The company also demonstrated a Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything platform designed for autonomous driving applications, being meant to allow driverless vehicles of the future to communicate with other traffic participants and their Internet-enabled environment in a straightforward manner. Reliable communications services will be a crucial component of any commercially available self-driving technologies of the future and Qualcomm is still adamant to spearhead their development, with its latest such offering being compliant with the 3GPP’s recently completed 5G standard.
The chipmaker also showcased what it claims is the industry’s first wireless PROFINET Industrial Ethernet connection conducted over 5G NR, highlighting the potential of such technology in the context of industrial IoT. Wireless Ethernet solutions could pave the way toward fully reconfigurable factories, leading to unprecedented levels of efficiency, Qualcomm claims. All of the company’s newly announced technologies will be demonstrated at this year’s iteration of Barcelona, Spain-based Mobile World Congress running from February 26 to March 2. 5G is expected to be one of the trade show’s focus points as the technology is now nearing commercialization in the United States, South Korea, and Japan. First 5G-ready smartphones are expected to hit the market by early 2019.