It’s a watershed day today in the history of Qualcomm Technologies, as it unveiled the announcement of very first Standard-Complaint Trials for all mobile devices on the basis of a 5G Modem Chipset. This is a new achievement unlocked in the domain of the global telecommunications industry that the world was yet to see until the announcement that was flagged today.
“Qualcomm inventions are the foundational technologies that others build upon – inventing new industries and applications that have global impact.” This quote inserted on the home page interface of its official site aptly sums up the far-reaching impact of the technological innovations brought in by Qualcomm on millions of lives spanning the globe.
The latest milestone cast by Qualcomm is the adoption of its Snapdragon X50 5G modem for live and wireless mobile 5G NR trials that envelop numerous wireless network operators stretching over the world map, including both the spectrum bands of sub-6 GHz and millimeter wave(mmWave). The list of the global network operators keen to incorporate Qualcomm’s 5G modem into their company is quite exhaustive, such as British Telecom, China Telecom, LG Uplus, NTT, DOCOMO, Orange, Telstra, TIM, Deutsche Telecom, Verizon, and Vodafone, Singtel, SK Telecom, Sprint, AT&T, KDDI, KT Corporation and so on. All these and several other interested global network operators will be carefully carried out specific trials based on the 3GPP Release 15 5G NR standard.
These mobile 5G NR standards will be conducted through the 5G mobile test platform and smartphone reference design of Qualcomm Technologies, which are compatible with the Snapdragon X50 chipset and also enable power optimization within the 5G technology as per the constraints of the form factor and power capacity of all smartphone devices. Not only this, Qualcomm’s 5G technology is efficient enough to ensure interoperability and co-compatibility with 4G LTE. These well-chalked-out plans speak of Qualcomm Technologies’ dynamism and preparedness in its mobile 5G NR solution as in a smartphone form factor. All the same, it also underlines Qualcomm’s commercial vision of making the standard-compliant 5G NR services and products market-ready in the near future.
Qualcomm’s 5G mobile chipset products and 5G ecosystem partnerships have kept its position unchanged as the stable leader in the mobile industry. The pre-planned demonstrations at 2018’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that is slated to showcase the Snapdragon X50 5G modem working its over-the-air magic, speeding into download speeds of many gigabits per second, serve as evidence of Qualcomm’s innovative potential. To add to this, the Mobile World Congress will also give a glimpse of the new use cases, underscoring the resultant enhanced user experience that will be unlocked by 5G technology. The 5G NR standard will be used to showcase the impressive 5G interoperability, with several infrastructure players trying out Qualcomm’s advanced prototype systems. Heading further in this manner, this process will eventually lead to living 5G NR trials with the giant operators in 2018, latest by early 2019. This piece of information rings in music to the ears of all Qualcomm fans as this hints at the anticipated launch of the commercial 5G NR network and multimode smartphone rollouts.
2018 will be a big year for Qualcomm Technologies and the mobile industry overall as we work to execute on the agreed upon 5G NR specification.These trials demonstrate how we are working with global operators to fuel growth and innovation in the mobile industry and make 5G a reality by supporting a large number of expected commercial launches in 2019. With our proven success in 3G, 4G LTE and RF front-end leadership, Qualcomm Technologies is ideally positioned to deliver the multi-gigabit, multimode products required for the global rollout of 5G. – Christiano Amon, President of Qualcomm Incorporated
Indeed, Qualcomm’s enhanced mobile broadband ushers into “The next era of immersive, always-connected experiences with fiber-like 5G speeds at significantly lower-cost-per-bit.”
This year, the Operator trials are to begin to utilize spectrum in both the sub-6 GHz and millimeter wave (mmWave) bands, which is the keynote for broadening the expanse of coverage and effecting improved network capacity. Keeping in line with the scheduled operator trials and first half of the timeframe of 2019, Snapdragon X50 5G modem will be used during these 5G NR trials so as to prepare the global network operators for the commercial network rollout of 5G, upgrade OEMs to accordingly produce shipments of 5G smartphones and allow for the necessary trials, testing and development covering a wide range of use cases and deployment scenarios, to match up to the actual global market scenario when rolled out.
Regarding its 5G technology, Qualcomm’s website flashes a one-liner, “Leading the world to 5G, a new era of seamless connectivity”, and rightly so as the thoughts of the global operators on the upcoming trials indicate.
Putting in some of them, we have:
Table of Contents
1. AT&T
Learnings from these standard-compliant trials will help drive forward our plans to start launching commercial mobile 5G services later this year. We are happy to participate in trials like these resulting from the global push to accelerate 3GPP. – Igal Elbaz, the Senior Vice President, Wireless Network Architecture and Design, AT&T
2. Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom is a committed partner in industry collaboration activities that advance the development of a mature and robust 5G ecosystem. We look forward now to conducting 5G New Radio standard-compliant field trials with Qualcomm Technologies from 2018 that will pave the way to early 5G commercialization, and ensure that we bring the full benefits of 5G services to our customers. – Arash Ashouriha, the Senior Vice President Technology Innovation, Deutsche Telekom
3. Orange
Orange is happy to cooperate with Qualcomm Technologies on our journey towards 5G and as it is essential that the operational roll-out is supported by a large and open ecosystem. As a sponsor of the NGMN Trial and Testing Initiative, Orange supports key industry collaboration towards 3GPP standard-compliant trials, and we are committed to deploying 5G as we believe that the multi-service connectivity it will provide in the future has vast potential to cover a large variety of use cases and applications,” Arnaud Vamparys, the Senior Vice President, Radio Networks of Orange
4. Vodafone Group
We are pleased to be working with Qualcomm Technologies using mobile devices powered by the Snapdragon X50 5G NR modem family that align with global 5G NR standards, enabling validation of the performance of 5G Networks as we prepare for commercial readiness. – Luke Ibbetson, HHead of Vodafone Group R&D.
5. Verizon
From our position at the forefront of 5G deployment in the U.S., Verizon is driving the development of new technologies and customer experiences in collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies,Together, we’re building the foundation of tomorrow’s fixed and mobile 5G NR wireless networks for our loyal customers. – Ed Chan, the Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Architect, Corporate Network and Technology, Verizon
As Qualcomm actively leads the world into a future that is centered around 5G, one can visualize nothing short of a paradigm shift in cellular technology, ushering into an era of intelligent, connected devices, unleashing new opportunities in connected cars, remote delivery of health care services, and the IoT which includes smart cities, smart homes and wearables. Thus, its tagline rightfully claims, “We invent the tech the world loves.”
