BT and Huawei Team Up to Develop Future UK 5G Mobile Broadband Tech

Telecoms operator BT (EE) and long-time partner Huawei have today joined forces on a new project to both research and develop the next generation of ultrafast (20Gbps capable) 5G based Mobile Broadband technology at the BT Labs facility in Ipswich.

Apparently the pair will aim to jointly explore various aspects of 5G, such as network architecture, a new air interface between devices and base stations, “network slicing” (i.e. allowing operators to apportion network resources to specific services), machine-to-machine communications in Internet of Things (IoT) applications and security technologies.

The agreement is somewhat of a complement to BT’s existing partnership with Nokia (here), which was announced in August 2016 and will focus on many of the same areas. We note that Huawei and Nokia have in the recent past been associated with trials of different 5G related candidate networks and BT are wise to be keeping an eye on both.

Gavin Patterson, CEO of BT Group, said:

“We are determined to maximise the potential of 5G for our customers, so collaborative research has a key role to play as the technology develops. This partnership with Huawei will see us explore the potential uses and make sure 5G is designed to meet the needs of our consumer and business customers throughout the world.

Huawei and BT have a strong record of collaboration when it comes to developing cutting-edge communications technologies, and we’re pleased to be building on that relationship to pioneer tomorrow’s mobile services.”

Ken Hu, Huawei Deputy Chairman of the Board, said:

“We are very proud of our work with BT over the last eleven years. We have conducted joint research and development activities which have led to new products and solutions and with 5G we look forward to continuing this fruitful partnership. Together we can explore the potential of 5G networks and analyze how this vital technology can best be delivered.

The partnership also demonstrates Huawei’s continued commitment to partnering with world-leading business and academic organizations in the UK to further research and development. We have operated in the UK for fifteen years and we look forward to continuing to help build a better connected UK in partnership with BT.”

BT has a long history of working with Huawei on the fixed line side of their national UK telecoms, Ethernet and broadband network, thus today’s announcement makes a lot of sense and that’s particularly true in light of the recent merger with mobile giant EE.

At present we’re not expecting to see a solid 5G standard emerge until mid-2018 (here) and the first commercial services won’t roll-out in the United Kingdom until around 2020, assuming Ofcom are able to auction off the required high frequency spectrum; ideally without mobile operators delaying that through more legal squabbles and bickering.