5G Factor: Chips Ahoy! The Latest on Qualcomm, Juniper, Samsung & MediaTek

In this episode of The 5G Factor, our series that focuses on all things 5G, the IoT, and the ecosystem as a whole, I'm joined by my colleague and fellow analyst, Clint Wheelock, for a look at 5G news and what's going on that caught our eye.

Our conversation focused on:

Qualcomm Calls for 5G to Standalone. In a recent blog, Qualcomm advocates that many of the key innovations in 5G require 5G Standalone (SA) — a network architecture that can allow new, differentiated services which can be monetized for new revenue streams. However, only 22% of the 524 operators investing in 5G networks are investing in 5G SA. We provide our perspective on why more operators need to deploy 5G SA to accelerate the pace of innovation across the 5G ecosystem and what benefits 5G SA brings in contrast to 5G non-standalone (NSA) implementations. 

Juniper's New Beyond Labs Aims to Solve Biggest Challenges of Experience-First Networking Era. Juniper Networks Beyond Labs is a fresh initiative focused on shaping the future of the networking and IT industries with emphasis on pioneering research and experimental technology developments. For Juniper customers and partners, such as Eurofiber and Intel, along with the broader academic community like Purdue University, Juniper Beyond Labs will provide an opportunity to influence research directions and pathfinding projects.  We provide our views on Juniper extending its collaboration with Intel and work on the integration of the Intel FlexRAN Reference Architecture, private 5G networks, Juniper RIC and the Juniper Cloud-Native Router on Intel Xeon processors, can enable new capabilities that advance 5G transformation.

Samsung Electronics and MediaTek Demonstrate 5G Uplink Capabilities with Three Transmit Antenna. Samsung and MediaTek successfully completed testing of 5G Standalone Uplink (UL) 2CC Carrier Aggregation with C-Band UL MIMO to improve uplink speeds. The Suwon, Korea-based lab demo used three transmit (3Tx) antennas to improve upload experiences. We consider and review what 5G ecosystem benefits 3Tx capabilities can provide across the 5G ecosystem in areas such as cloud gaming, video collaboration platforms, and live streaming.