NTT Docomo is partnering with five vendors, including Intel and Qualcomm, to collaborate on trials and technological development around 5G, which it wants to introduce commercially in 2020.

Separately, the Japanese operator is partnering on 5G with Nokia Networks for radio technology, it was announced.

Docomo said about the partnership with the five vendors: “The collaborations are expected to include experimental trials of 5G handset chipsets with Intel, measuring instruments with Keysight Technologies and Rohde & Schwarz, multi-frequency-band control units with Panasonic, and trials and innovations on the 5G radio interface with Qualcomm Technologies”.

This is in addition to the eight vendors it has already been working with since May 2014 on 5G, including Huawei and Alcatel-Lucent.

NTT Docomo CTO Seizo Onoe said “global expectations for 5G are growing as we approach the start of the standardisation phase.”

The operator and its partners will begin technical discussions and various indoor trials at the firm’s R&D centre in the Japanese city of Yokosuka, within the current fiscal year ending in March 2016.

Meanwhile, as part of its 5G strategy NTT Docomo has also partnered with Nokia Networks “to explore and harness the potential of Nokia Networks’ 5G radio technology in the 4.4-4.9 GHz band” and drive future standardisation of 5G technology.

Onoe told Mobile World Live recently that the type of discussions taking place for 5G are very different than with 3G and 4G, when the technology came first, which then led to services and new businesses long after deployments. “With 5G the actual technology to support the business cases will come later,” he said.