Nokia are almost back.... and they are bringing 5G!

Nokia are yet to make an appearance since their departure from the mobile market after their one-sided friendship with Microsoft that took away the Lumia range. Similar to what we all remember happening to poor British born Rover with Honda, BMW and every other car company looking to take a piece of a once good and competitive company, Nokia suffered a lost in the smartphone market from competing products, such as Apple and the Android operating system. 

Since then, Nokia have tested the water with an Android stock tablet, known as the N1. This proved to be successful in many countries with a great review on quality and pricing. Now, before they make their appearance back into the mobile industry in 2017, they have been cohooting with BT to master the magic of 5G.

As we are all aware from Richard Bacon, 4G is where everything is happening. After the success of EE and their link with BT, it seems right that the communications company starts to work on the new 5G signal that South Korea have been leading on until now. 

They have been put on record as saying "We’ve agreed to work with Nokia on potential customer use cases for 5G technologies, the creation of 5G Proof of Concept (PoC) trials and the development of the emerging technology standards and equipment".

Integrating the best capabilities of fixed and mobile networks, 5G will deliver seamless connectivity which is even more capable than today’s 4G technologies. It will deliver greatly improved ultrafast speeds to mobile users and targets peak rates of multiple Gigabits and latency in the range of one millisecond.

Such speeds would allow for the simultaneous streaming of data-heavy content such as virtual reality or live 360 degree video to any device, while greatly reduced latency would mean truly real-time engagement between remote users and systems. This is essential for consumer applications such as mobile gaming and major technology advancements like driverless cars.

However, the two companies believe that the technology’s biggest potential is its ability to improve the flexibility and usability of mobile networks, allowing them to ‘flex’ to meet the specific needs of customers. This might include lower latency to support critical communications, or greater power efficiency and higher bandwidth usage for different applications. This new flexibility will be critical to support new business and consumer services based on IoT, including connected cars, smart cities and remote health monitoring applications.

Howard Watson, CEO of BT Technology, Service & Operations, said: “Our EE mobile business already boasts the biggest 4G network in the UK, which is set to cover 95% of the country by 2020.

“We will build on that foundation to develop the next generation of LTE-Advanced Pro and 5G services over the next few years. It’s still early days for 5G technology, but experience tells us that a collaborative approach is key to success.

“We’re delighted to be working with Nokia to drive a common approach to 5G, and to develop exciting use cases which bring together our combined experience in fixed and mobile technologies.”

Cormac Whelan, head of the UK & Ireland at Nokia, said: “5G is the communications technology of the future, and it will transform how we communicate with each other, as well as communicate with devices and ‘things’.

“Nokia is delighted to be working with BT in laying the foundations for 5G adoption in the coming years, and in helping define how this technology will enable exciting and innovative experiences.”

As a first step in the collaboration, Nokia is currently conducting trials of its latest 5G-ready radio equipment at the BT Labs at Adastral Park, Suffolk. This radio system demonstrates key 5G technology ingredients that are currently in standardization running on Nokia’s AirScale radio access, including an entirely new 5G frame structure and 4 x 100MHz carrier aggregation.

What implications will this have for your business and the communication web that holds it together? Answer on a postcode, or at leqst the comments below.