OREANDA-NEWS. Deutsche Telekom will continue to lead further development and standardization of 5G technology with the launch of an innovation lab. “The 5G:haus will allow us, in cooperation with leading partners, to develop the architecture, to foster innovation and to steer standardization work. The lab will also provide a platform to engage with our customers at a very early stage of 5G development,” says Bruno Jacobfeuerborn, Chief Technology Officer for DT and Chairman of the NGMN Alliance Board (Next Generation Mobile Networks).

DT will work within its innovation laboratory with a broad range of partners including research companies, startups and established network infrastructure equipment vendors. The company will use its European footprint to build up the lab and will be able therefore to showcase in different locations across Europe.

Working with universities, startups, vendors, and customers will enable DT to leverage the diverse competencies and strengths of the different partners and to develop 5G from a holistic, customer-oriented perspective. Some of Deutsche Telekom’s partners include SoftRAN Initiative at Stanford University, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence - DFKI, University of Kaiserslautern, and Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (Fraunhofer FOKUS and Fraunhofer HHI) as well as startups like RF DSP, Kumu Networks and Moogsoft and of course vendors such as Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, ZTE, Qualcomm and Huawei. “With the 5G:haus, we will be able to assess candidate technologies and will make consistent contributions to the process of developing a global 5G standard. We look forward to engaging with our listed partners and are open to welcoming more of them in the near future,” says Jacobfeuerborn.

At the Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona, the NGMN Alliance announced the publication of the 5G White Paper, which represents the view of the 24 operator members. “The publication was an important first step in the overall 5G development process. The industry must now work together to deliver a global communications standard and related products that allow first commercial deployments by 2020,” says Jacobfeuerborn. The direct engagement with the industry enabled by the new innovation laboratory makes uniform standards possible.