ISLAMABAD (PRESS RELEASE)
Mobile World Congress Shanghai 2018 opened at the Shanghai New International Expo Center today. Huawei Rotating Chairman Eric Xu addressed the audience in his keynote speech titled Bringing MBB to a New Level with 5G. Xu expressed his hope that 5G would bring the mobile Internet – especially mobile video – to a level comparable to mobile voice service today, allowing users to enjoy mobile broadband services wherever and whenever they want. Xu also expressed his expectation that 5G would nurture new basic services and drive the sustainable growth of the mobile communications sector.
Xu emphasized that 5G standards are the result of joint collaboration between global organizations. As a major 5G standards contributor and patent holder, Huawei will follow the FRAND principle – Fair, Reasonable, and Non-discriminatory – as it has always done. During the standardization process, Huawei will continue to recommend innovative technologies to other industry players, and will never squeeze other companies or society as a whole.
Below is the full text of his keynote speech.
Official release of the first 5G standard after decades of global collaboration
At 11:18 on June 14 during a Plenary Meeting, 3GPP approved the freezing of the standalone specifications for 5G New Radio (NR), which marks the official release of the R15 standard. The non-standalone NR specification was released in December of last year. At present, the first phase of full-featured standardization work has been completed.
The R15 standard focuses on commercial needs for enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB). It also meets basic needs for uRLLC and mMTC. 5G can deliver a peak speed of 10 Gbps at 100 MHz bandwidth, and 20 Gbps at 200 MHz bandwidth. 5G is set to bring mobile broadband services to a whole new level. I’d like to take this opportunity to pay my tribute to all experts who have worked on 5G standardization and research. Thank you for your incredible work!
The 3GPP R15 standard focuses on improving mobile Internet experience. By the end of 2019, R16 and subsequent standards will address the challenges that come along with massive numbers of connections and ultra-low latency, thus enabling industry digitization. 5G technologies, including the LDPC and Polar Codes, result from decades of effort by several generations of basic research scientists. The LDPC Code was first introduced by US professor Robert Gallager in 1963. That was 45 years ago. Polar Code was first proposed in 2008 by Erdal Arikan, a Turkish professor at Bilkent University. That was 10 years ago. 5G standards wouldn’t have been possible without decades of global collaboration.
5G builds on 4G and expands its potential
5G supports faster speeds, lower latency, and more connections than 4G. But if we look at the architecture and protocol stacks, it’s clear that 5G actually builds on 4G and expands its potential. 5G and 4G use the same architecture. Their baseband units and remote radio units are the same. Their protocols are largely the same. Mobile Internet services remain the bulk of the data traffic flowing in both 4G and 5G networks. Enhanced encryption algorithms and privacy and authentication mechanisms will make 5G more secure. That means 5G will provide better security than 4G.
Huawei follows the FRAND principle for 5G standard-essential patents
Huawei is a major 5G standards contributor and patent holder. In our official statement released on May 15, Huawei announced our commitment to following the FRAND principle – Fair, Reasonable, and Non-discriminatory – as we have always done in the past. During the standardization process, Huawei will continue to recommend innovative technologies to other industry players, and we will never squeeze other companies or society as a whole. We aim to build a robust 5G ecosystem through fair and open collaboration.
Huawei won’t seek to squeeze other companies or society as a whole. That means we will stick to the FRAND principle and make every effort to reduce licensing fees for 5G patents. We advocate that 5G patent holders should ensure their cumulative licensing rates are lower and more transparent than 4G. And we are working hard to make this a reality.
5G will support 100 billion connected cellular devices, a number much larger than what a 2G, 3G, or 4G network can support. With a larger market, holders of 5G standard-essential patents are able to get reasonable returns from their R&D investment, though at an IPR licensing rate lower than in the past.