Networking News

NYU WIRELESS, OPPO Partner for Next-Gen 5G Wireless Technology

NYU WIRELESS continues to work toward 5G wireless technology with new partnerships and FCC license.

NYU WIRELESS announces 5G wireless technology license and partnerships.

Source: Thinkstock

By Elizabeth O'Dowd

- NYU WIRELESS and OPPO announced that the smartphone vendor has joined the university research center at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering as an affiliate and research sponsor for next generation 5G wireless technology.

OPPO now has early access to NYU WIRELESS research and will work with university students and faculty on 5G research projects.

NYU WIRELESS has worked to deploy universal 5G technology and is internationally recognized for its research. NYU Wireless connects its affiliates and researchers from other universities in its seminal mmWave research, measuring, and modeling.

"NYU WIRELESS has been a major source of innovation in the frontier of telecommunication technologies aimed at shaping the future all-connected society, and we are delighted to join NYU WIRELESS's industry affiliate program," OPPO Director of Standardization Hai Tang said in a statement.

"As one of the top smartphone vendors in the world, we are committed to developing a promising next-generation mobile communication technology, commonly known as 5G,” Tang continued. “And I believe the close collaboration between OPPO and NYU WIRELESS, as well as potential industrial collaboration inspired by the 5G Summit, will play an important role in the future evolution of the industry."

Earlier this month the FCC granted NYU Wireless an early Program Experimental License in the wake of its research and work throughout the radio spectrum. The FCC’s experimental licensing program encourages technological innovation.

Its new type of experimental license gives researchers, including universities and healthcare organizations, more flexibility develop new technologies and services.

“The license will allow the center to do cutting-edge work throughout the spectrum, not just at frequencies critical to 5G, but also far beyond,” NYU WIRELESS Founding Director Theodore Rappaport said in a statement. “We believe massively broadband mobile communications will eventually migrate to both lower and higher frequency ranges, and we are honored that the FCC chose NYU to be one of two academic institutions to test the portal for usability and accuracy to help pave the way for our wireless future.” 

5G wireless technology continues to be an area of interest for healthcare organizations as more providers are adopting telehealth solutions. Successful telehealth deployment depends heavily on the wireless network infrastructure solution supporting it.

Telehealth often includes image sharing and video streaming, which are both very heavy on bandwidth. 5G technology will provide clinicians and patients with better quality connections resulting in better quality care.

Other 5G research efforts are currently being conducted to improve wireless connectivity and produce standard 5G technology.

Earlier this year, Qualcomm, Ericsson, and AT&T announced their plan to collaborate and conduct interoperability testing and over-the-air field trials based on the expected 5G New Radio (NR) specifications under development by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).

The 3GPP provides its organization partners with an environment to produce and test new telecommunication network standards, which will form the basis of the global standard. The organization aims to help move the global mobile ecosystem from 4G LTE to a faster 5G deployment based on standards-compliant 5G NR infrastructure.  

Qualcomm, Ericsson, and AT&T will test accelerated commercial deployments in the 28 GHz and 39 GHz bands. The companies will demonstrate new 5G mmWave technology to increase network capacity by utilizing high frequency bands.

While the trials are not expected to take place until the latter half of 2017, they are expected to yield valuable insight into integrating the technology into current mobile networks and devices.

Current 5G wireless research is promising for the healthcare industry because of the growing popularity of telemedicine. The more advanced wireless connection will allow for more advanced uses for telemedicine as information will be shared much more quickly.