5G: the hype du mois in the telecoms and mobile PR battery

This post was first published by Duncan McKean on the CCgroup PR blog.

Last week saw some of the world’s leading telecoms technologists head to Amsterdam for the LTE World Summit. By all accounts, it was a fairly quiet affair except in one regard – “5G”.

Ah yes, 5G: The next great revolution in radio access technology and architecture in the mobile world. Everyone loves a bit of “next generation”, right? Wrong. At least, Dan Warren, the GSMA’s director of technology, doesn’t.

During the event, Chinese vendor ZTE outlined its technical vision for 5G architectures, and Ericsson demonstrated its very own 5G solution. These were two prominent examples of several 5G discussions, getting everyone all a-flutter with excitement at what the future might hold.

The trouble is, “5G” at this stage is not a lot more than a statement of intent – it’s not defined anywhere in technical standards and a lot of other new, related technologies are simply having the 5G name badge pinned on in the hope of gaining some sort of credibility. Read more