CES is over, and WiGig / 60GHz technologies in general were heavily featured at the show. But, interestingly, there are also several stories coming in that look at 5G mobile technologies.

From ourselves, we announced a partnership with InterDigital to explore millimetre wave solutions for small cell base stations and access points. We’re also in discussion to extend the collaboration and are looking to create a demonstration platform that will enable operators to evaluate this technology to more cost effectively increase 4G and 5G backhaul throughput.

This platform would also be ideally suited to R&D exploration for 5G millimetre wave mobile access.

And we’re not alone. At the end of last year, Europe’s 5GPP association launched with a budget of €250 million and plans to run up to 20 research projects throughout 2014, many of which will focusing on mm wave technologies.

And, there was an interesting piece in EE Times earlier this week, where Intel’s Ali Sadri discussed the company’s research into using mm wave wireless technologies for 5G cellular systems and having it implemented in the eventual standard.

According to Sadri, mm wave wireless “will play a very serious role as an augmentation of the cellular infrastructure.” And these wireless bands will play a significant – but not exclusive – role in 5G networks. As Sadri says, mm wave technologies will allow a high throughput channel that augments the standard comms frequencies, “in the same way that WiGig augments WiFi.”

With Mobile World Congress taking place in just 40 days we can expect several new announcements on 4G and 5G backhaul to start hitting the news stands.

We will be at the show to hold key business meetings. If you’re also there and looking to implement either a WiGig / tri-band WiFi or LTE backhaul chipset then get in touch and we can discuss how our HYDRA 60GHz baseband IP can help you go to market more quickly and easily.