While some of us are only just upgrading the mobile internet capabilities in our pocket from 3G to 4G, academics at the University of Surrey are already working on the next generation of mobile communication, 5G.
Surrey’s 5G Innovation Centre, which is due to open officially in September, is working with industry to develop the flexible infrastructure that will handle society’s ever-growing demand for mobile data. Unlike 4G, which relies on fixed aerials to provide mobile internet coverage to a certain area, 5G uses software to detect internet demand and feed coverage to where the demand is.
The benefit of juggling resources in this way is faster and greater capacity mobile internet. If it sounds complicated, that is because it is and it is not likely to come into play until 2020.
At Surrey, the 5GIC is a £70 million project in collaboration with industry dedicated to creating a test bed to develop the technologies required for 5G. It boasts more than a dozen industry partners, including Vodafone, EE, Samsung, Telefónica and Fujitsu, which are helping to fund the technology in exchange for access to the facilities.
Keith Robson, the chief operating officer at 5GIC, says that it will be the only centre of its kind anywhere in the world. Once completed, the test bed will offer 5G coverage to a 4km square area around the centre and university campus.
“For all intents and purposes it is going to mimic what you would get in a 5G environment in a small town,” says Mr Robson. Academics already have a small number of 5G phones which are beginning to talk to the network, he adds.
Mr Robson says that the university was already talking about creating a test bed when the Higher Education Funding Council for England issued a call for ideas for the UK research partnership investment fund in 2013. “We just happened to have our partners lined up so when the call came out we were able to move very quickly to crystallise around that and we put in a bid for £12 million,” he says.
It won the funding under the condition that for every £1 of money from Hefce, the university must pull in £2 from industry. The project initially had seven partners, with a total value of £36 million, but since then it has “grown enormously” with some companies approaching the centre wanting to become part of the project. “It is very different to anything else that I have ever worked on,” adds Mr Robson.
The centre has a five-year programme with companies on a rolling agreement that is renewed annually. Mr Robson says that it is unique as it offers companies from the “incredibly competitive industry” of telecoms the chance to work together in a complete 5G environment. This will, for example, allow them to develop common standards.
The benefit for Surrey, whose experience and expertise in telecoms research is “number one in Europe”, according to Robson, is that it allows academics to “stay ahead of the field and stay relevant globally”.
“The only way of doing that was to go for something of this scale. It is a massive global industry and the centre now gives us the prospect of a new platform for the future,” he says.
“We can compete much more proactively in a growing burgeoning global sector… in terms of research it is essentially a platform for some significant expansion over the next few years,” he adds.
Mr Robson says that other universities will also be able to access the facilities, and it will allow Surrey to engage in European Commission-funded Horizon 2020 research programmes.
The industrial partners will help steer the research programme at the centre and a “well-defined" process is in place to manage any resulting intellectual property issues.
Mr Robson says that the fact that partners have confidence they are not going to be part of something that was “very prescriptive and very academic” is part of the centre's success so far. “They got a real say in what we do and [that] encouraged them to invest more,” he adds.
In numbers
£70 million – the size of the investment in the centre
Campus news
University of Aberdeen
Joint degrees could be offered by the University of Aberdeen and Curtin University, which is based in Perth, Australia. The institutions have agreed to develop research partnerships in areas such as energy, medicine and literature. Staff and student exchanges are also planned, as are joint training opportunities. Sir Ian Diamond, Aberdeen’s principal, said that the arrangement was “yet another step forward in the internationalisation of our activities”.
Lancaster University
A student’s journey from applying to university to graduation has been captured in a New York subway-style map as part of a project to improve life on campus. The landscape “visualisation”, created by PhD student Hayley Alter, is the result of a 16-month project at Lancaster University which included focus groups with students, academics and professional staff. The project has resulted, so far, in revisions to the campus map, new signposting and improved wi-fi connectivity.
University of Southampton
A researcher is to begin work on a vaccine to protect the Tasmanian devil from eradication. Armed with a £200,000 grant from the Leverhulme Trust, Hannah Siddle, a lecturer in molecular biology at the University of Southampton, will lead a three-year project to understand how a facial tumour disease, which has a close to 100 per cent mortality rate, moves between the animals. The Tasmanian devil is the world’s largest remaining marsupial carnivore.
London Metropolitan University
A charity has donated £2.6 million to a London university’s efforts to help students from poorer families. London Metropolitan University will spend the grant from Sir John Cass’s Foundation on engaging with students in some of the capital’s poorest boroughs. Kevin Everett, the foundation’s chairman, said “support for the most disadvantaged students is all the more required” because maintenance grants, received in full by about 70 per cent of London Met home undergraduates, are to be replaced by loans from September 2016.
University of Sheffield
A university counselling service has become one of only seven organisations nationally to be awarded a new quality assurance accolade. The University of Sheffield service been honoured by the Accreditation Programme for Psychological Therapy Services, a partnership between the Centre for Quality Improvement at the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the British Psychological Society. It is the first university service to earn the award.
London Business School
Sir Alex Ferguson, the former Manchester United manager, has been quizzed by business students about his management career in front of a BBC documentary crew. Sir Alex, who won 49 trophies during his career, spoke to students at the London Business School about turning the Old Trafford club into the world’s most valuable football brand, as well as his philosophy of leadership and management. The class, part of the school’s managing sport and entertainment module, was filmed by BBC cameras for a programme on Sir Alex’s career, which is due to air later this year.
University of East Anglia
Scientists have found a way to separate the medical benefits of cannabis from its unwanted side-effects. The research comes from a team at the University of East Anglia in collaboration with Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona and reveals that the cognitive effects of THC, the main psychoactive ingredient in the drug, are triggered by a pathway that is separate from some of its other effects. When the pathway is blocked, THC can still exert beneficial effects, including pain relief, while avoiding alterations in mood, perception or memory, the research shows.
Cardiff University
Cardiff University and National Museum Wales have agreed to work more closely together on research. A memorandum of understanding, which has been signed by the two institutions, clears the way for joint research projects, staff training and exchange schemes. Collaborative programmes of postgraduate study and PhD supervision are also planned.
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Print headline: Telecommunications hub to bring 5G to your fingertips
