During the last decade the UK government has made clear its strategy to harness the transformative power of 5G technology and establish the country as a leader in expertise and delivery. A team of researchers and academics at the University’s Faculty of Engineering has carried out much of the technical research that underpins this ambition – paving the way for a multi-million pound government investment in 5G test projects and for businesses and individuals to start reaping the benefits.

Laying the foundations

The research at the University’s Smart Internet Lab started as early as 2014 with an investigation into achieving end-to-end multi-technology network convergence. This work delivered two innovations that are now key components within 5G Networks: technology agnostic optical-wireless architectures for converged networks through programmable hardware interfaces; and agile, autonomous and end-to-end service provision through Network Function Virtualisation and Orchestration.

Further work was carried out on Mobile Edge Computing and Service Orchestration technologies that are fundamental for delivery of ultra-low latency services. Beyond basic upload and download speeds, low latency is a key benefit of 5G that opens up many new possibilities for services that demand nearly instant response time – including telemedicine, augmented reality, gaming and communication between autonomous vehicles.

Another innovative aspect of the research was the demonstration of the world’s first quantum secure 5G network for delivering ultimate security for disaggregated, distributed, and virtualised 5G network functions and services. This could have massive implications for organisations that deal with sensitive data, such as banks, health services, scientific research institutes or governments. 

The University also played a key role in driving forward the science and application of Massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (Ma-MIMO) – in the process demonstrating world-leading spectrum wireless efficiency gains of more than twenty times that of 4G.

Far-reaching impact

Thanks to the breadth of this research, society is now benefiting from the higher data rates, lower latency and higher reliability provided by 5G as networks and services continue to roll out.

The work has also influenced policy. Findings from the research team and close collaboration with The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport directly influenced the UK government to create its £200 million national 5G Testbeds and Trials programme. Ultimately this has culminated in a strategy for securing the UK’s telecommunication supply chain.

The Lab’s pioneering research into new 5G technologies and control methodologies has also been adopted by international standardisation bodies such as 3GPP, influenced the architecture of British Telecom’s 5G network roll-out and accelerated the adoption of 5G connectivity by multiple industries and businesses. Samsung, for example, has exploited the research in its mobile edge computing product portfolio – citing that this will significantly enhance the way it delivers mobile gaming, connected car applications and video streaming along with many other applications.

The University has also created, Zeetta Networks, a spin-out company that has commercialised the Smart Internet Lab’ Network Virtualisation and Orchestration research and has created a product portfolio for automatization and monitoring of 5G network operation. These products are being deployed in many high profile projects, like helping National Composite Center (NCC) to deploy one of the world’s first 5G enabled autonomous Manufacturing.

Work on all these areas is still ongoing as 5G technology continues to roll out and develop – but there’s no doubt the results achieved are already having a major influence in the UK and around the world.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport’s Programme said: “The University of Bristol Smart Internet Lab’s skills and world-leading expertise in advanced telecommunications technologies have contributed to the UK’s position as a world leader in 5G, benefiting the country’s economic growth and prosperity.”