Swedish vendor Ericsson and the Chinese Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) signed an agreement in Beijing yesterday to conduct joint R&D on 5G technologies.

The two said they aim to speed up the research and standardisation of 5G technologies, with the goal of the standard being commercialised before 2020. Key focus areas will be radio access technology, core network architecture and 5G applications. They also have agreed to share information in the areas of convergence in vertical industries, industry transformation, applications and ecosystem development.

CAICT, a leading ICT think tank in China, was involved in pioneering the 3G and 4G standards. Ericsson and CAICT have cooperated together for many years on various projects.

Cao Shumin, CAIC president, said cooperation is essential for achieving global economies of scale and fostering innovation.

Last week Ericsson and mobile operator SingTel announced they had agreed to work together to test potential 5G technologies to be included in its future standardisation.

In July the equipment supplier and South Korea’s SK Telecom said they had demonstrated so-called ‘elastic cell’ technology to improve data transfer rates by up to 50 per cent. SKT said it aims to commercialise elastic cell by 2016 and will bring it a step closer to achieving “1Gb/s data throughput anywhere” — an expected requirement of future 5G services.