With the latest launches from Samsung and Nokia in the MWC, it was only a matter a time till Huawei caught the limelight. The fight to provide the modem chip with support for the 5G network has been going for the last couple of months now. In MWC, Huawei has finally unveiled their first 5G ready chipset by the name Huawei Balong 5G01. The company claims that this is the first chip with support for a new 3GPP standard for 5G network. If this chip provides what is being said, then we would soon be able to use the internet at a browsing speed of 2.3 GB per second.
However, looking at the size of the chip, despite the company’s $600 million investment, it is still not at the size of a mobile device. Most probably we will see this chip on mobile hotspots. On top of it Mr Richard Yu, the CEO of Huawei technologies claims that this chip technology would soon be running on mobile phones, smart cars and smart homes.
Huawei Announces Balong 5G01 | Photo Credit: The Verge
This new unveil just makes the competition tougher for both Qualcomm and Intel. Qualcomm recently launched the x24 chip which claims to make the customers 5G ready and with its latest collaboration with carriers and smartphone manufacturers, the company is trying to install a new x50 chipset on some devices. On the other hand, Intel is not just watching the show either. Last month Intel launched a 5G ready chip for smart cars and drones and had also recently partnered with Microsoft, Dell, HP and Lenovo to develop another chip to make 5G connectivity possible on laptops.
5G is the next generation of network provider, and the telecom operators also should soon work on providing the customers with 5G networks, when the devices are ready for 5G connectivity. Change in speed between LTE and 5G is huge as we can see from the change or increase in the browsing speed. As of now, there is still a long way to go and to see 5G operate like LTE is currently doing so, it would take a couple of years.
