Xiaomi, Nokia and others to launch Qualcomm X50-based 5G smartphones by 2019

5G, the next generation of mobile broadband communications, is inching closer to commercial roll-out. The first wave of 5G phones are expected to hit the global market by the end of 2019.

As the technology is still in developmental phase, chipset maker Qualcomm has announced a major partnership with smartphone companies such as Asus, HMD Global (which sells Nokia phones), LG, Sony Mobile, Sharp, Xiaomi and ZTE among others. These companies will be using Qualcomm's Snapdragon X50 5G NR modem suite to launch 5G-enabled smartphones in 2019.

"Qualcomm Technologies continues to be a mobile industry leader with its 5G mobile chipset products and 5G ecosystem collaborations in support of aiming to deliver commercial 5G NR mobile devices in 2019," said Qualcomm in a press release.

"The arrival of 5G will expand mobile into new spectrum bands and all spectrum types, allowing for enhanced mobile broadband and increasing the overall average download speeds for virtually all smartphone users."

5G technology ensures multi-gigabit per second data transfer rates with significantly lower latency. The new technology will be highly critical for not only mobile broadband but also other categories such as virtual reality and augmented reality that require higher data transmission capacities for smoother experience.

"Furthermore, for the Always Connected PC, significantly lower latency will allow for an instant link to the cloud for applications requiring real-time interactivity, such as interactive gaming, real-time audio translation, real-time text translation and real-time collaborative editing," said Qualcomm in the release.

The latest announcement comes shortly after Ericsson announced 5G commercial software for radio and core networks to enable operators to launch 5G as early as the fourth quarter of this year.

Ericsson's 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) commercial software is based on the recently approved 3GPP 5G New Radio (NR) standard. The company claims the technology will help facilitate growth of data traffic and streaming of high resolution multimedia such as 4K and 8K content along with virtual and augmented reality.

"The radio offering is complemented with 5G Core commercial software, optimized for 5G throughput, network capacity and scalability. Ericsson's Packet Core and Unified Data Management solutions will deliver enhancements throughout 2018 to efficiently support 5G services. These solutions can be further upgraded with new functionalities as the 3GPP 5G standard evolves," said the company.