5G will enable the long-term Networked Society and realize the vision of unlimited access to information for anyone and anything.
This vision will be achieved by combining evolved versions of today’s radio-access technologies (RATs), including LTE and HSPA, with complementary RATs for specific use cases, not by replacing existing technologies.
The research required for the development of 5G is now well underway. The recently founded European METIS (Mobile and wireless communications Enablers for the Twentytwenty Information Society) project is aimed at developing the fundamental concepts of the 5G system and aligning industry views.
The 5G concept developed by, for example, the METIS project, can be assumed to reach standardization phase within a few years. In this case, the transition to full 5G capability will take place gradually from around 2020.
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