UK scientists have achieved record-breaking speeds while performing 5G data connection tests.
Researchers at the University of Surrey’s 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC) achieved 5G data speeds in excess of one terabit per second (Tbps) – which is thousands of times faster than current existing network speeds. At speed of 1Tbps, it would be possible to download 100 movies in mere three seconds. The speed is around 65,000 times faster than current real-world 4G LTE speeds.
“We have developed 10 more breakthrough technologies and one of them means we can exceed 1Tbps wirelessly. This is the same capacity as fibreoptics but we are doing it wirelessly,” 5GIC director Professor Rahim Tafazolli told news website V3.
The research team built their own transmitters and receivers and conducted the speed tests in lab conditions over a distance of 100m. Large scale outdoor trials of the ultrafast 5G technology are expected to begin next year, with public demonstrations of the same anticipated in the first half of 2018.
“We don’t know what applications will be in use by 2020, or 2030 or 2040 for that matter, but we know they will be highly sensitive to latency,” Tafazolli continued.
“We need to bring end-to-end latency down to below one millisecond so that it can enable new technologies and applications that would just not be possible with 4G”.
Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, said 5G could be available in Britain by 2020 and that it believes that 5G mobile should be able to deliver speeds of between 10-50Gbps, compared with the 4G average download speed of 15Megabits per second (Mbps).
The speeds recorded by the research team surpassed the 7.5 gigabits (940 megabytes) per second speed achieved by Samsung in October last year.
