Commercialization criteria are determined
According to Samsung’s announcement, about 1,500 standard experts from chipsets, cell phone and equipment suppliers, including Samsung, Qualcomm, and Verizon, AT&T, NTT DoCoMo, KT and SK Telecom, will participate in this event. The meeting held in Busan to complete the first edition of the 5G phase.
At this meeting, all working groups that develop 5G wireless technologies (RAN Working Groups 1-5) will be summarized to determine the final technologies for commercialization of 5G, including ultra-high-speed data and ultra-low latency 5G wireless access technologies. And the conformance testing method for 5G terminals. The RAN4 working group chaired by Samsung will determine the radio performance requirements for 5G terminals and base stations including the 3.5GHz and 28GHz frequency bands.
It is reported that Huawei, OPPO, Vivo and other Chinese mobile phone manufacturers will also participate in the conference. Huawei's 5G product line president Yang Chaobin said: 'According to plan, this meeting will complete the standard technology for 5G independent networking (SA), after review It will be formally announced at the US RAN plenary next month that Huawei has also prepared a proposal. After the standard is established, enterprises can use the standard-based equipment for commercial use. 'OPPO, vivo also said that there will be technical contributions and participate in discussions.
According to the information of the Beijing Commercial Daily reporter, the first edition of the 5G standard is divided into Non-Stand Alone (NSA) and Stand Alone (SA). The non-independent networking is an interim solution. The main goal is to increase the bandwidth of hotspots and rely on 4G base stations and 4G core networks. Independent networking can realize all 5G new features and contribute to the full capabilities of 5G. It is an industry-recognized 5G target solution. Last December 3GPP approved for the first time the existing 4G LTE as a 5G non-independent (NSA) standard for connection to the 5G hub. The 5G independent (SA) standard will be completed at this meeting in Busan. The first standard in the 5G phase will be adopted by the 3GPP next month. The meeting was officially approved in the United States.
In addition, the 5G standard has three scenarios. In 2016, it was determined to be 1/3. The remaining 2/3 will be determined next month. The three scenes of the 5G standard are the eMBB scene coding scheme; mMTC corresponds to large-scale objects. Networked service scenarios; URLLC corresponds to driverless, industrial automation and other services that require low latency and highly reliable connectivity. The eMBB scenario coding scheme corresponds to high-traffic mobile broadband service scenarios such as 3D and ultra-high definition video, and LDPC data has been determined. Channel, control channel is Polar.
Samsung's strength in 5G should not be underestimated. As of this month, Samsung holds 1,254 patents in 5G. Samsung Electronics ranked first in the list of 3GPP member companies that filed 5G standard patents with the European Telecommunication Standardization Organization (ETSI).
Patent fee game
5G will bring about a new round of global mobile communications technology revolution and construction boom. At the same time, it will also include new opportunities for Qualcomm, Huawei, ZTE, Ericsson, Samsung and other major technology companies. The 5G standard dispute is essentially a patent. Competition.
Industrial watcher Hong Shibin said: 'When companies research standards, they will propose a series of related patents that use the standard. After the standard is established, all people who use the standard need to pay royalties to the party that has obtained the right to use the relevant patents. 5G mobile phones have been put into commercial use. Afterwards, all mobile phone manufacturers need to pay patent licensing fees to patent holders. For enterprises failing to apply for standards, losing one standard not only means that the funds spent on the previous research and development standards will not be paid, but will be passed on to the patentee later. Huge amount of royalties. '
In November last year, Qualcomm announced a 5G patent fee plan in a high-profile manner. 5G handsets using Qualcomm's mobile core patents worldwide must pay royalties in accordance with the following terms: 2.75% for single-mode 5G handsets; 3G/4G for multi-mode 5G handsets. /5G)3.25%. For those 5G mobile phones that use the core patent of Qualcomm mobile network standard at the same time, non-core patents, the charge rate is: 4% for single-mode 5G mobile phones; 5% for multi-mode 5G mobile phones (3G/4G/5G) According to this standard, domestic mobile phone manufacturers must pay 97.5-150 yuan to Gaotong for each handset sold for 3,000 yuan.
Qualcomm has always been the overlord of the patent market. The company has a lot of standard necessary patents in the 2G era, especially CDMA. After that, many 3G technologies have also evolved from CDMA. 3G technologies include CDMA2000, WCDMA, and TD-SCDMA. Among the standards, CDMA2000 is dominated by Qualcomm, WCDMA is dominated by Nokia and Ericsson, and TD-SCDMA is led by China (mainly ZTE, Huawei, China Mobile and other vendors), with certain independent intellectual property rights (TD-SCDMA). Some still use CDMA technology. However, the former two occupy the largest market, and TD-SCDMA is limited to the Chinese market. Although the latter two do not seem to be directly related to Qualcomm, Qualcomm has mastered the core technology of CDMA, so whether it is Ericsson or not. Still Nokia, or a Chinese manufacturer using TD-SCDMA technology, needs to pay royalties to Qualcomm.
In the 4G era, it is the two modes of FDD-LTE and TD-LTE. Although China's dominant TD-LTE has independent intellectual property rights, in fact, more than 90% of the patents of the two systems are common. According to the previous monopoly of Qualcomm. Some of the information in the case shows that Qualcomm still owns a lot of LTE patents (either TD-LTE or FDD-LTE), 'after investigation and recognition by the National Development and Reform Commission, Qualcomm can still charge 3.5% of the patent fee for TD-LTE technology'. This is an important reason why many Chinese mobile phone manufacturers have signed patent licensing agreements with Qualcomm in 2016.
According to industry insiders, it can be seen that patent fees are crucial for technology companies. Previously, standards including 5G communication data codes and control codes have been established. Among the three standards, Huawei lost by a single vote. With the dominance, only the standard of the control code was obtained. The long code and short code standards were won by Qualcomm.
Opportunity is still great
According to Xiang Ligang, a senior communication expert, Chinese companies have not completely lost their opportunities. 'In terms of patent fees, no single standard is completed by a single company, and companies with different standards have patents. In terms of quantity, Chinese companies and foreign technology giants are also required to cross-patent patents.' Xiang Ligang said.
Hong Shibin believes that Huawei is pleased to win the final solution of the control channel eMBB scene coding. The application of Polar coding to the 5G scenario is very high. Huawei uses the Polar code as the channel coding method in the 5G field test to achieve 27 Gbps. The downstream rate of 27Gbps means that downloading a large sandbox game like GTA5 takes only a few seconds.
However, the significance of this matter does not have to be overstated. Polar Code is not a 5G standard, but a coding scheme. From the 5G application scenario, the eMBB owned by Huawei is only one of the scenes for 5G applications. ' Hong Shibin said.
In terms of the formulation of the 5G standard, Xiang Ligang believes that although 5G has already faced commercial use, 5G technology has not yet fully matured, and energy has not been fully released. In the three major application scenarios of 5G, in addition to the eMBB scenario coding scheme, the other two The scenarios have not yet established standards. Autopilot and IoT scenarios have enormous energy release space. Huawei should continue to work hard to seize these air gaps. 'In the high-traffic scenario, there is no chance that Huawei can continue to test more advanced protocols. Standards, continue to develop advanced application technologies, and can also cooperate with China's mobile communications companies to upgrade 5G accordingly.
Of course, behind the discourse of the 5G standard is the national power. Chinese companies must work together to fight for the discourse power of the 5G standard. In the 5G era, Chinese companies represented by Huawei and ZTE have already deployed ahead of schedule and obtained first-mover advantage. The communications industry needs to have a place in the global 5G era. It still needs the coordinated development of related enterprises and organizations throughout the industry chain to jointly respond to the opponents in the international communications industry.
In addition to Huawei, ZTE also plays an important role in the 5G battle. Among them, ZTE has made several important breakthroughs in the 5G field in 2017. In February 2017, ZTE released a full range of 5G pre-commercial base stations. , And launched the 5G bearer program Flexhual based on IP+ light; in October of the same year, ZTE cooperated with Italy Wind Tre and Open Fiber to launch the first 5G precommercial network in Europe. In December of the same year, ZTE launched 5G based on service architecture. Core Products.