The Korean partnership of SK Telecom and Samsung is combining once more to showcase new telecoms technology. They will be demonstrating a technology known as 3D Beamforming, which is designed to support high frequency bands.

With spectrum such a scarce resource, higher frequencies are increasingly being looked at to support mobile communications. The thing is, once you get into the region of 6GHz (otherwise known as millimeter wave, in reference to the wavelength) you get increasing propagation loss, which essentially means shorter range. The shorter the range the more transmitters you need and the greater the financial and logistical challenge.

SKT and Samsung claim to have overcome this challenge “by producing a pencil beam and steering the direction of radio signals,” which appears to be a highly focused beam that offsets the physical constraints faced by higher frequency waves.

Another distinct benefit of this technology is its support for higher speeds of data transmission. By combining it with ‘Full Dimension MIMO’, which uses hundreds of antennas to further increase bandwidth, the companies will demo 7.55Gbps data transmission at the show.

“Samsung Electronics has built the most advanced 4G LTE telecommunications infrastructure in the world by working closely with other Korean companies,” said Cheun Kyung-whoon, IoT Solution Team Leader at Samsung Electronics. “We will continue to lead the global mobile industry by focusing on the development of 5G technologies through strengthened cooperation with our partners.”

“SK Telecom is delighted to demonstrate the key 5G technology with Samsung Electronics,” said Choi Jin-sung, Head of Corporate R&D Center at SK Telecom. “We will make ceaseless efforts to develop innovative network technologies that will lead us to the new era of 5G marked by infinite possibilities.”

As you can see the two companies are keen to associate this technology with 5G, despite there being no standard or even consensus on what that means yet. It is also not expected to become a reality for a few years, but 5G, in combination with record transmission speeds, is sure to attract attention at MWC so job done.