A new 5G Innovation Centre at the University of Surrey in Guildford has been given the go-ahead. The research centre, which will support the development of fifth-generation mobile communications in the UK, is receiving a total of £35 million in funding.
£11.6 million of government money is being provided from the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund, while around £24 million is coming from a mobile industry consortium. Members of the funding consortium include Huawei, Samsung, Telefonica, Fujitsu Laboratories, Rohde & Schwarz and AIRCOM International.
Professor Rahim Tafazolli, Head of the University of Surrey’s Centre for Communication Systems Research, said “There are massive challenges and opportunities facing the sector. The global telecommunications industry, valued at $2.1 trillion per annum, is already responsible for 6% of world GDP. Mobile communications data traffic is expected to increase 1,000 fold by 2020, by which time there will be an estimated at least 50 billion Internet-capable devices. The growth in the number of new applications running on the networks is accelerating, as ever more mobile devices become the preferred route for Internet access. Such unprecedented data traffic growth requires the urgent introduction of new 5G advanced technologies that maximise the use of the limited available radio spectrum and provide for Greener technologies and solutions.”