Vodafone has partnered with the Dresden University of Technology to research and develop 5G technology.

The partnership will bring together academics, developers and technology companies to explore the capabilities of 5G and establish technical guidelines for its development, according to Vodafone. The most obvious result of this is the opening of a dedicated 5G lab at Dresden University of Technology with facilities to test and evaluate network hardware and software, spectrum, cloud computing and more.

“Today, mobile communications is all about moving content from one place to another,” said Professor Gerhard Fettweis, Vodafone chair of mobile communications systems at Dresden University of Technology. “Tomorrow it will be about being able to control a vast array of objects in real-time with little human intervention. To get there we need to rethink wireless communications, particularly with regard to data rates, latency and IP services. With our new 5G lab, and the support of our partners like Vodafone, Dresden is well positioned to lead a cross-industry effort to find answers to some of these challenging questions.”