Together with their industrial partners, VTT Technical Research Center of Finland and the University of Oulu built a 5G test network (5GTN).
The test network was meant to be the foundation of critical new technologies, developed upon the previous 4G network. The test network also enabled the testing of the performance of the technologies (including applications, services, algorithms and systems) in a realistic environment.
The test network in Oulu, Finland, consisted of two parts: a restricted network on VTT’s premises, and a public network at the university.
This project strengthens the position of Finnish industry as a developer of 5G technologies and applications. The project focuses on seeking clear business benefits for partner companies.
"The 5G test environment supports corporate product development. Its benefits are reflected, for example, in high-speed and reliable connections, short delays, energy savings and connectivity," said says Project Manager Atso Hekkala from VTT.
The first book on 5G mobile networks Software Defined Mobile Networks (SDMN): Beyond LTE Network Architecture was also published in Finland by the researchers in Oulu.
According to VTT, 5G that is more flexible, ensures high-quality multimedia and cloud services, enable the future Internet of Things, and lower material and energy consumption.
This can be made possible with 5G's capability in offering multiple gigabit per second for data transfer and low-latency connections.
The development of 5G network can be dated back to April 2008, when NASA partnered with Geoff Brown and Machine-to-Machine Intelligence (M2Mi) Corp.
Then the first widely cited proposals that were the foundation of 5G, appeared in the IEEE Communications Magazine in June 2011. The first reports of radio channel measurements that validated the ability to use the proposed millimeter wave frequencies for urban mobile communication were published in April and May 2013 in the IEEE Access Journal and IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, respectively.
Then in June 2014, the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications published a special issue on 5G that included a comprehensive survey of 5G enabling technologies and solutions.
It was on 17 October 2016 that Qualcomm announced the first 5G modem, the Snapdragon X50, as the first commercial 5G mobile chipset.
