NETCOM Research Group

With current wireless data networks in the "fourth generation" or 4G, key players in the ICT sector are already paving the way for 5G wireless data networks and beyond technologies. At Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona this week we are witnessing examples of how current investment into this next generation networks has spread across research initiatives worldwide.

The 5G innovation laboratory 5TONIC (Madrid, Spain) is the first open co-creation testbed that was set up in Europe, back in 2015, to enable an international array of companies, universities and research institutions to test, demo, trial and prototype advanced wireless network systems on the basis of open and flexible research collaboration.

At MWC 2018, wireless research and development company InterDigital (United States), an early member of the 5TONIC testbed, has organized various activities, from demonstrations to interviews and panels, showcasing this collaborative approach to the 5G challenge.

“The promise of 5G networks to give us access to almost unlimited communications, data and computation services in real time, poses an enormous technological challenge as its impact will be felt across the board, well beyond the ICT sector. It is necessary to work on multiple spheres and new directions, and collaboration is key to solve problems that are more complex than any one team or organization can handle”, has stated Arturo Azcorra, Director of IMDEA Networks, Professor at University Carlos III of Madrid and Vice-president of 5TONIC. “At 5TONIC we are searching for non-proprietary solutions to challenges as varied as autonomous vehicle communications, network virtualization, future Internet architectures, software-defined networks, the Internet-of-Things, communication in millimeter wave frequencies or augmented reality.”

Azcorra represented 5TONIC at the MWC Panel "5G Testbeds – Research Directions for 5G and Beyond”, hosted by InterDigital on February 28th). The panel moderator was Douglas Castor, Senior Director at InterDigital and the rest of panelists were Monique Calisti, Managing Director of Martel Innovate (Switzerland), John Kaewell, Senior Director, CTO office (InterDigital) and Howard Tsao, Technical Director at ITRI (Taiwan).