Networking & Wireless

NYU Wireless Expands Industry Ranks, Pursues 5G

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 03/24/15

An academic research center at New York University focused on next-generation wireless has welcomed its 12th industrial partner. NYU Wireless recently added Cable Television Laboratories to its program, which gives participants, including AT&T, Intel and Nokia, access to research and recruitment possibilities. CableLabs is itself a non-profit research and development consortium; its membership is made up of cable operators. NYU Wireless is run out of the university's Polytechnic School of Engineering.

At the same time the university organization said it was immersed in looking beyond current cellular standards such as 4G and LTE-A and pushing on development of what's being called "5G," the next generation of mobile technology, which promises to facilitate throughput of up to 10 gigabits/second.

In October 2014 the Federal Communications Commission announced that it had begun exploring the potential of mobile services in the millimeter-wave (mmWave) above the 24 GHz radio spectrum. That's the same spectrum for which NYU Wireless is developing science and mathematical channel models needed to create 5G equipment.

"The use of mmWave frequencies provides a viable solution to meet the data rates and speeds promised by 5G," said Dan Rice, senior vice president of Network Technology at CableLabs, in a statement. "In order to ensure the most effective use of its capacity, it will require a ubiquitous wired network to offload data. The cable industry has invested a lot in its network and provides a robust and reliable platform for connecting wireless cells to the Internet. Collaborating with NYU Wireless enables us to solve the technical challenges of mmWave frequencies for the next generation of wireless broadband."

Added Professor Theodore "Ted" Rappaport, founder and director of NYU WIRELESS, the drive to 5G "is much more rapid than the changeover to 4G — and it promises to vault the U.S. into a leadership position while ushering in a phase of thrilling research and development and products that will create jobs, wealth and access to extraordinary new services and capabilities."

NYU WIRELESS brings together the work of 20 faculty members and 100 graduate students from the school of engineering as well as the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and the School of Medicine.