5G technology is anticipated to become a fundamental part of the fabric that links human civilization through phones, and vivo is one of the few globally acclaimed phone manufacturers that is leading the way toward a connected and convenient future
(Pakistan Point News - 26th Oct, 2021) 5G technology is anticipated to become a fundamental part of the fabric that links human civilization through phones, and vivo is one of the few globally acclaimed phone manufacturers that is leading the way toward a connected and convenient future.
In an exclusive interview with Urdupoint, vivo’s 5G Standard Expert Tamrakar Rakesh opened up about how the brand is navigating towards large-scale 5G adoption and what measures have been taken for contributing to the policy debate around the technology’s spectrum and deployment.
- What is 5G and how is it different from 4G?
5G is fifth generation wireless technology that will fuel innovation and transform the way we live, work, and play. Compared to 4G network, 5G increases flux density a hundredfold and connection density tenfold. This allows for a new kind of digital infrastructure that can connect virtually everything and everyone via peak data transmission speeds with minimal latency to provide a uniform experience to us all, culminating in higher efficiency and optimized performance to empower new user experiences. vivo, as one of the leading smartphone makers, had took part in forming 5G technical standard.
- How should we understand the demand for 5G?
The pandemic has reformed the world in an unprecedented way – consumers and industries are fast-tracking a digital revolution in an era of social distancing and remote work. The time is ripe for many commercialized products and services to ride the wave of unparalleled high-speed connectivity and minimal latency enabled by 5G. Yet, the technology at the forefront of them all is without a doubt the smartphone. By combining mobile telephone and computing functions within a singular multi-purpose device, smartphones have brought about a profound scale of mobility and accessibility with one-stop services that empower consumers across every aspect of their daily lives. According to a forecast by vivo, demand for 5G devices is catching up to the entirety of the smartphone market as researchers recorded exponential growth between 2020 and 2021. Additionally, a report by Gartner has also pointed out that the worldwide demand for smartphones with 5G capabilities more than doubled in 2021.
- Where does vivo’s 5G stand compared to the rest of the industry? What has vivo done to achieve such accomplishment?
The 5G products or services consumers are presented today with a refined conglomeration of technologies formulated by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), a consortium of international telecom standards organizations that provide a stable platform for collaboration. vivo is one of the pioneers to join the 3GPP 5G standard formulation for over five years. As one of many companies that set their sights on 5G technology, vivo established special 5G task forces back in December 2016 across Beijing and Shenzhen. One month later, vivo made its debut at the 2017 3GPP meeting. Since then, vivo has submitted over 5,000 5G proposals to the 3GPP, leading to 15 technical features and getting three technical projects approved. With more than 100 global standard experts staffed at its communication research institute, vivo now holds over 3,000 patents for 5G inventions. As a leading smartphone company with in-depth R&D capabilities, vivo is dedicated to accelerating the empowerment of consumers en masse in this new era by designing cutting-edge 5G smartphones that are available at every price point. To achieve such ambitious goal, vivo’s strong R&D network across nine innovation center and research teams across the world have played an important role.
- What kind of innovations that vivo has made in terms of 5G？
vivo focuses on innovations in hardware design and the software ecosystem to improve terminal performance and user experiences. Having amassed over 400 million users worldwide, vivo knows consumers best within the industry. Thus, vivo invests heavily in 5G connectivity to reach the stage of product realization and getting this technology into the hands of consumers. One of vivo’s most notable contributions includes the standardization and performance enhancement of Rel-17 multi-SIM technology. Previously, an incoming voice call from one competing 5G SIM card would interrupt the data flow of the other, resulting in abysmal performance as one would cancel the other. Having discovered early that consumers had a preference for 5G smartphones with dual-SIM card slots for greater flexibility in different usage scenarios, vivo researchers successfully sought to negate the clash, leading to the existence of multi-SIM 5G smartphones on the market today. Additionally, vivo underwent algorithm and system optimization to facilitate this technology, combined with 120-watt fast charging to ensure complete user satisfaction with their devices. Select vivo smartphones are housed with a superconducting carbon fiber liquid cooling system to prevent device overheating, which is especially prevalent during intensive multimedia entertainment or e-sports usage scenarios. Another issue raised by 5G technology is the increasing number of antennas and components installed inside a smartphone. However, users are relentless in their pursuit for ultra-thin smartphones encased in sleek metallic exteriors. Never one to disappoint, vivo’s proprietary 3D stack design uniquely encases all this industry-leading technology to allow new 5G smartphones to be even slimmer than its 4G predecessors.
- What kind of impact that vivo’s 5G would bring to our daily life?
It goes without saying that 5G can facilitate limitless applications, on both industrial and consumer levels. For tech-savvy individuals accustomed to heavy device usage loads, 5G will be a game changer in elevating their collective digital devices into powerful, cloud-synced gateways capable of tapping into the most resource-intensive applications and data streams. Hundreds of thousands of industries are currently undergoing paradigm shifts as enterprises and countries race to propel society into the next phase of technological transformation. Besides, the industries are becoming integrated, owing to the reliable and streamlined network between machines, devices, and other digital objects. With many creative applications ranging from augmented reality/virtual reality experiences to vehicle-to-everything driverless cars and many more, 5G will provide humankind with the foundation to establish smart cities with comprehensive internet-of-things technologies that can efficiently restructure our lived environments and redefine our everyday lifestyles.
- How is vivo going to advance 5G towards the next generation technology like 6G?
As 5G commercial networks are gradually deployed around the world and progressively advanced devices increasingly permeate every aspect of our livelihoods, thought leaders of the mobile industry are already looking forward to its next generation: 6G. vivo is part of a select few that hold the extensive expertise and in-depth understanding of consumer needs to turn this vision into a reality. To kickstart this exciting new era, the vivo Communications Research Institute released two white papers in late 2020 that break down the facets of 6G technology. Providing a diverse set of hypothetical scenarios and case studies, vivo communication standard experts have analysed how the sixth generation will embody much more than technological transformation as it merges our physical and digital worlds. Currently, vivo has 4 key research orientations in 6G: OVTDM, OTFS, RIS and cell free. Besides, vivo is also working on aspects including AI+ Communications, Backscatter, THZ, holographic MIMO, integration and perception, network framework etc. Additionally, vivo is currently the only device company who has participated in “6G Overall Research Topic,” the major project conducted by the Ministry of Science and Technology in China.
