CCSR welcomes 5G Innovation Centre funding success
Monday 8 October 2012
A proposal led jointly by the Centre for Communication Systems Research (CCSR) and the University of Surrey to create a premier world research hub for 5th Generation mobile communication technologies (‘5G’) in the UK takes a significant step closer to being realised with the announcement today of £35 million new research funding.
The funding bid, made by the University and CCSR to the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund (UKRPIF), for £11.6 million in government money is underpinned by an additional circa £24 million from a consortium of key mobile operators and infrastructure providers including Huawei, Samsung, Telefonica Europe, Fujitsu Laboratories Europe, Rohde-Schwarz and AIRCOM International - bringing the total funds available to £35 million. The money will be used to develop a specialised 5G Innovation Centre to stimulate significant expansion in UK telecommunication research, development, innovation and the provision of broadband mobile internet services, with significant downstream benefits for economic growth.
‘There are massive challenges and opportunities facing the sector,’ says Professor Rahim Tafazolli, director of CCSR.
‘The global telecommunications industry, valued at $2.1 trillion per annum, is already responsible for 6% of world GDP. Mobile communications data traffic is expected to increase 1,000 fold by 2020, by which time there will be an estimated at least 50 billion Internet-capable devices,’ says Professor Tafazolli. ‘The growth in the number of new applications running on the networks is accelerating, as ever more mobile devices become the preferred route for Internet access. Such unprecedented data traffic growth requires the urgent introduction of new 5G advanced technologies that maximise the use of the limited available radio spectrum and provide for Greener technologies and solutions.
‘Although the UK played an active role in the creation of 2G (GSM) cellular standards, it has increasingly fallen behind in succeeding generations 3G and 4G standards. The University’s industry partners have identified this proposal as the single biggest opportunity for the UK to regain a world leading position in the development of 5G technologies and for the development of vibrant businesses around the technologies.’
‘The announcement of this funding success is a major coup for the University, its industry partners and the economy,’ says Professor Sir Christopher Snowden, President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Surrey. ‘The new 5G Centre of the calibre set out in our bid will enable the UK to lead this rapidly expanding segment of the global digital economy. Locally, it will bring yet more momentum to the already significant growth in the clusters of established and new high tech businesses on our Surrey Research Park. Finally, and very significantly for us, it consolidates the leading position of our own CCSR in Europe and paves the way for the further development of our long-term strategic partnerships with major global telecommunications organisations and significant inward investment into both Surrey and the UK.’
Welcoming news of the announcement, David Delpy, Chief Executive of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) says: ‘Such funding recognises the long-term investment EPSRC has made in our top research and innovation centres, strengthening the links between EPSRC, universities and business. It will provide the vital tools to help the UK’s best scientists make new discoveries more quickly and drive future innovation.’
