UK, Germany to work together on 5G internet

With the UK playing the role of partner country at CeBIT this year, PM David Cameron opened Europe's largest technology show in Hanover, with German chancellor Angela Merkel.

Cameron spoke on several tech news issues including 5G, the Internet of Things (IoT) and the pace of advances in technology.

Cameron said in his introduction, "This is a world on fast forward. Just a decade ago, Skype was a typo, a tweet came from a bird, and the cloud was something in the sky." He went on to speak about UK tech business and more specifically about 5G and the IoT.

He also stated that it was the ambition of his government to make the UK the most digital nation in the G8.

Meanwhile, the University of Dresden, King's College University in London and the University of Surrey will work together on 5G networks. Without mentioning the technology behind the upcoming 5G network, Cameron said, "With 4G, an 800 megabyte movie takes around 40 seconds to download; with 5G that would be cut to one second."

Cameron also announced an extra £45 million funding to help towards the progress on the technologies, which according the BBC brought the pledged amount by the government to £73 million.

5G (5th generation mobile networks or 5th generation wireless systems) refers to the next  major advance in mobile telecommunications standards beyond the current 4G/IMT-Advanced standards, and is also referred to as beyond 2020 mobile communications technologies.

Cameron emphasised the importance of the strengthening of the EU digital market.

5G had been gaining traction over the past year with Chinese networking major, Huawei, leading the way.

The company has planned an outlay of €444 million in 5G research and development over the next four years and Korea had also stated it would be investing heavily in 5G technology with trials expected to happen by 2017.

According to commentators the successor to 4G would be available in 2020 with maximum theoretical download speeds up to 1,000 faster than 4G LTE (around 100Gbps). Among other benefits users can look forward to are, much lower latency and better battery life.