Samsung Aims to Spur 5G Action with Silicon Valley Summit

Samsung is hosting the inaugural Silicon Valley 5G Summit in San Jose today, and is calling on industry leaders to band together to bring about an open ecosystem for 5G networks.

The summit features over a hundred participants from a range of sectors, including chip makers, academics, industry analysts, policymakers, telecom operators, and more, according to a Samsung statement announcing the Summit. As the head of Samsung’s Next Generation Communications Business Team, Paul Kyungwhoon Cheun, explains, “it is critical to build a sustainable ecosystem by inviting all industry stakeholders to share their perspectives on how 5G will develop over the next few years.”

For its part, the Federal Communications Commission appears to be on board. The head of its Office of Engineering and Technology, Julius Knapp, points out that the US was the first country in the world to open up the ultra-high frequency band of the frequency spectrum to mobile services, thanks to “the swift action on wireless policy taken by the Federal Communications Commission.” This past summer, the FCC approved a plan to open spectrum to 5G networks and to auction it off to telecoms, an important step toward preparing the US for the emergence of 5G.

Meanwhile, industry efforts are progressing apace elsewhere in the world. Ericsson, for example, has been busy working with telecoms in Europe to test out 5G technologies, with a recent field trial with Swedish telecom Telia suggesting that it’s on track to start offering 5G services as early as 2018.