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back to article Want to know what 5G mobile is? Ask this British university

Surrey University has scored £11.6m in government cash, and £24m from the industry, to fund the development of next-generation telecoms in a shiny new 5G Innovation Centre. The government money comes from the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund, by way of the Higher Education Funding Council, but the bigger portion comes …

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  1. JakeyC

    Mandatory Spinal Tap Reference

    "Yes, but this G goes up to 11"

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  2. Christian Berger

    Mesh networks would be the future

    Unfortunately they are not really compatible with the idea of "network operators".

    This wouldn't be much of a problem if it could be completely meshed. However it's likely you need some sort of infrastructure to support the mesh.

    What could work, would be to operate that infrastructure by non-profit organisations. Kinda like the "Bürgernetzverein(e)" in the 1990s in Germany. You join them and help them pay the bills and volunteer, while everyone can use it. The more people join the better the network will be.

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    1. Ru
      Reply Icon

      Re: Mesh networks would be the future

      When I read "mesh" I was thinking a little more along the lines of "trunked", where the last couple of hops might be relayed by handsets rather than base stations.

      I wouldn't hold out much hope for your battery life in that sort of architecture, mind you.

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      1. Christian Berger
        Reply Icon

        Re: Mesh networks would be the future

        Well not all radio devices are battery powered. And for fixed location devices that would make great sense. With adaptive beam-forming you can talk to many peers with little crosstalk.

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      2. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Mesh networks would be the future

        Poor battery life in mesh networks is a common fallacy, even amongst those that should know better. It was one of the main reasons a mesh option was dropped from the 3G spec. With a fair routing algorithm, each user's power consumption is lower on average. This is because path loss is proportional to distance to a power (i.e. not linear), so the sum of the power consumption of many short hops is a lot less than one big one.

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  3. 1Rafayal
    Joke

    Dont suppose Apple have already patented it all?

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  4. HMB

    Finding MIMO

    Obviously we haven't found MIMO yet.

    From what I see MIMO makes up a large part of LTE Advanced's strategy. It doesn't seem mentioned in this article though.

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  5. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    It's simple

    1G used analogue variation in power to transmit calls

    2G used digital signals to transmit calls

    3G used IP packets to transmit data

    4G used vague handwaving to transmit marketing bullshit

    5G will use nuclear physics to actually manipulate inter-atomic bonds to send data at almost the speed of light between copper atoms. Billions of these copper atoms will be contained in a new atomic metalic fibre only slightly thicker than an optical fibre and be connected directly to each handset in what the makers a re calling cord-to-handset technology.

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    1. Tom 35
      Reply Icon

      Re: It's simple

      I expect 5G will be the same as 4G. It will happen as soon as they get all the big spenders over to 4G and are looking for something new to sell them.

      It will not mater about any attempt to set a standard since they got away with it on 4G.

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  6. daveeff
    Unhappy

    oh dear

    So the government won't be able to make money selling 5G? Has anyone told them?

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01n2tnv

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  7. Barrie Shepherd

    "The other problem is that LTE, the 4G technology of choice, is about as efficient as it can get: fitting more signals into the same frequency band just isn't possible."]

    A brave statement or was it intended to be a challenge to the boffins?

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yep, I'd say that there is consensus. Better Get Used to Carting around your own BaseStation

    "Long-Term Evolution (LTE) radio access is reaching the limits of Shannon's law, the spectrum available for mobile data applications is limited, and the only solution for increasing overall mobile network capacity is to increase the carrier-to-interference ratio while decreasing cell size and deploying small cell technologies"

    http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns341/ns524/ns673/white_paper_c11-701018.html

    "LTE introduces a number of innovations that, in aggregate, continue to push ever closer to the theoretical maximum data rates defined by Shannon's Law"

    http://business.motorola.com/experiencelte/lte-depth.html

    "With the advent of 3G and 4G technologies, the wireless industry is finally starting to run up against the barrier of Shannon's Law."

    http://connectedplanetonline.com/mag/telecom_shannons_specter/

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