移动网络技术新竞赛 向5G时代进军

GUILDFORD, England — On the outskirts of this sleepy commuter town just south of London, plans are underway to build the fastest cellphone network in the world.

英格兰吉尔福德——在这座伦敦南缘的宁静通勤小镇的郊区，打造世界上最快的手机网络的计划正在进行中。

The work is being done at the University of Surrey, where a leafy campus is dotted with rundown Brutalist-style buildings. Here, researchers and some of the world’s biggest tech companies, including Samsung and Fujitsu, are collaborating to offer mobile Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than anything now available.

这项工作在萨里大学(University of Surrey)展开。它那浓荫密布的校园里，点缀着一些粗野主义风格的老旧建筑。在这里，研究人员和包括三星(Samsung)、富士通(Fujitsu)在内的世界上最大的一些科技公司，正在合作研发一种新的手机网络，其速度会比现有的所有手机网络快上百倍。

Their work on so-called fifth-generation, or 5G, wireless technology is set to be completed in early 2018 and would, for example, let students download entire movies to smartphones or tablets in less than five seconds, compared with as much as eight minutes with current fourth-generation, or 4G, technology. Companies also could connect millions of devices — including smartwatches and tiny sensors on home appliances — to the new cellphone network, and automakers could potentially test driverless cars around the suburban campus.

他们进行的有关第五代无线技术——或称为5G——的研发工作，计划于2018年初完成。它将能让学生们在五秒钟内将整部影片下载到智能手机或平板电脑上，而用目前的第四代——即4G——网络下载一部影片，则需要八分钟。企业可以将包括智能手表、家用电器上的微型传感器在内的无数种设备与新一代手机网络相连，汽车厂商或许也可以在这座位于郊区的大学校园里测试无人驾驶车。

“A lot of the technology already works in a laboratory environment,” said Rahim Tafazolli, director of the university’s research center that oversees the 5G project, which includes almost 70 powerful radio antennas around the two-square-mile campus. “Now, we have to prove it works in real life.”

“有很多技术已经可以在实验室环境下实现，”萨里大学5G项目研究中心的主任拉希姆·塔法佐利(Rahim Tafazolli)说。这个项目在面积2平方英里的校园各处布置了将近70个功率强大的无线电天线。“现在，我们必须证明它在现实生活中也一样有效。”

The work by Dr. Tafazolli and his team puts them at the heart of a heated race. Fueled by people’s insatiable appetite for accessing videos, social media and other entertainment on their mobile devices, many of the world’s largest carriers, like ATT and NTT DoCoMo of Japan, are rushing to be the first to offer customers this next-generation ultrafast wireless technology.

塔法佐利及其团队的工作，让他们处在了一场激烈竞赛的中心。人们对接入视频、社交媒体和其他娱乐内容的需求巨大。受其鼓舞，全球很多排名靠前的运营商，包括ATT和日本的NTT都科摩(NTT DoCoMo)，都急于成为第一家向顾客提供下一代超快无线技术的公司。

The competition has led to research worth billions of dollars from telecommunications equipment makers like Ericsson of Sweden and Huawei of China, which are hoping to secure lucrative contracts to upgrade the mobile Internet infrastructure of operators like ATT from the United States and China Mobile in Asia. Those plans have become even faster paced as tech giants including Google consider their own ambitions for the latest, and fastest, high-speed Internet.

这场竞争促使瑞典爱立信(Ericsson)和中国华为等电信设备生产商投入数十亿美元进行研发。它们希望拿到ATT和中国移动等亚洲运营商的移动互联网基础设施升级订单，获取丰厚利润。随着包括谷歌(Google)在内的科技巨头开始考虑自己在最新、最快的高速互联网领域的宏图，这些计划的进展速度变得更快了。

“Everyone is rushing to demonstrate they are a leading player for 5G,” said Bengt Nordstrom, co-founder of Northstream, a telecom consulting firm, in Stockholm.

“人人都急着想证明自己是5G的领导者，”斯德哥尔摩电信行业咨询公司Northstream联合创始人本特·努德斯特伦(Bengt Nordstrom)说。

The efforts around 5G will be on display at Mobile World Congress, a four-day tech and telecom event in Barcelona that begins on Monday. Most of the world’s largest operators and device makers like Samsung are expected to announce their latest wireless technology, including smartphones, wearable products and digital applications at the trade show.

周一，科技和电信业盛事世界移动通信大会(Mobile World Congress)将在巴塞罗那开幕。围绕5G展开的行动将在为期四天的大会上亮相。全球最大的运营商及三星这样的设备生产商中，预计大部分都会在这场行业大会上宣布自己最新的无线技术，包括智能手机、可穿戴产品和数字应用。

Not to be outdone, telecom manufacturers also have announced glitzy demonstrations — including driverless cars, remote-controlled drones and autonomous robots balancing balls on tablets — to showcase their 5G credibility. The need to persuade carriers to buy the latest wireless technology has become ever more important as operators consider cutting investment plans in the face of a global economic downturn.

为了不被甩在身后，电信制造商也推出了一些耀眼的产品展示，包括无人驾驶车、遥控无人机和能在平板电脑上让几个球保持平衡的自主机器人，以展示自己的5G实力。在面临全球经济下行的运营商考虑削减投资计划之际，电信制造商需要说服它们，让它们相信最新的无线技术现在具有空前的重要性。

“If we miss the chance to make our networks relevant, it will be a disaster,” said Ulf Ewaldsson, Ericsson’s chief technology officer. “The billion-dollar question is what will a 5G network look like?”

“如果错过让我们的网络参与进来的机会，就是一场灾难，”爱立信首席技术官艾华信(Ulf Ewaldsson)说。“这里面一个最重要的问题是，5G网络会是什么样子？”

Despite companies’ efforts to outspend each other, that question remains unanswered.

尽管各公司的投资力度一个更胜一个，但这个问题依然没有答案。

A global standard for 5G wireless technology will not be finished before 2019, at the earliest. Companies worldwide must agree on how their networks talk to each other, so users’ mobile connections do not become patchy when traveling overseas. That involves lengthy negotiations over what type of radio waves the new technology should use, among other complicated global agreements, which can take years.

5G无线技术的全球标准至少要到2019年才能完成。世界范围内的公司必须就彼此的网络之间如何衔接沟通达成一致，这样用户在国外时，他们的移动通讯才不会变得时好时坏。这就涉及新技术应该使用何种无线电波，以及其他复杂的全球协议进行漫长的谈判。这个过程可能要花数年时间。

As a result, carriers, telecom equipment makers and tech companies are lobbying global-standard bodies and national lawmakers to promote their own technologies over rivals’, according to industry executives and telecom analysts. Because of this jockeying, a widespread rollout of 5G networks is not expected until well into the next decade.

因此，据行业高管和电信业分析人士称，运营商、电信设备生产商和科技公司正在游说制定全球标准的机构和各国议员，告诉他们自己的技术比对手的好。因为存在这种争夺，5G网络的广泛铺开预计要等到下一个10年。

Some analysts question why carriers are focusing on the next generation of wireless technology when many parts of the world, particularly in emerging markets, still suffer from achingly slow mobile Internet access. And industry experts say mobile Internet speeds in much of the developed world, especially in places like South Korea, where connections are often comparable to traditional broadband, already meet people’s needs.

一些分析人士质疑，为什么在世界上很多地方，特别是在新兴市场的移动互联网接入还极其缓慢时，运营商却把焦点放在了下一代无线技术上。行业专家称，在很多发达国家，特别是在连接速度通常堪比传统宽带的韩国等地，移动互联网速度已经能满足人们的需求了。

“A lot of this is about carriers and equipment makers looking for new ways to make money,” said Thomas Husson, an analyst at Forrester Research in Paris. “Consumers shouldn’t expect great things until after 2020.”

“这在很大程度上是因为运营商和设备生产商在寻找赚钱的新途径，”弗雷斯特研究公司(Forrester Research)驻巴黎的分析师汤玛斯·赫森(Thomas Husson)说。“2020年之前，消费者不应该期待有什么伟大的技术出现。”

These challenges have not stopped companies from staking a claim in hopes of being at the forefront of 5G.

这些挑战没能阻止各家公司纷纷押注，以期能让自己身处5G市场的前沿。

That is particularly true ahead of major global sporting events like the Olympics and the World Cup, at which carriers and national governments want to promote their technological know-how. At the 2018 World Cup, which will be held in Russia, for instance, the local operators MegaFon and MTS are expected to test 5G-style services, including ultrafast mobile Internet, even without global standards in place.

在奥林匹克运动会和世界杯等全球大型体育赛事到来之前尤其如此，运营商和各国政府都想在这些赛事上宣传自己的技术能力。比如，在将于俄罗斯举行的2018年世界杯上，当地运营商MegaFon和MTS计划推出包括超快移动互联网在内的5G类服务，尽管相关的全球标准还未确立。

The Korean mobile operator KT also plans to offer its own version of 5G technology at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and NTT DoCoMo has said it will have similar trials ready for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

韩国移动运营商KT也计划在韩国平昌举办的2018年冬季奥运会上提供自家版本的5G技术，而日本电信公司NTT DoCoMo则表示，它也会做好准备，在2020年于东京举办的夏季奥运会上进行类似的尝试。

“The only way of learning is by doing,” said Mats Svardh, head of networks at the Scandinavian carrier TeliaSonera, which will test its own 5G technology in both Stockholm and Tallinn, Estonia, in 2018. “It’s about putting pressure on ourselves to move forward with specifics, not just theories.”

“学习的唯一方式就是上手做，”北欧电信运营商TeliaSonera的网络业务负责人马茨·斯韦德(Mats Svardh)说。该公司将于2018年在斯德哥尔摩和爱沙尼亚的塔林两地测试其5G技术。“这其实是给我们自己施压，以便在一些具体的问题上取得进展，而不只是在理论上。”

United States carriers have also jumped on the 5G bandwagon, partly to offer people new services as current mobile speeds have become relatively interchangeable between major operators nationwide.

美国运营商也加入了这场5G风潮，部分原因是想给人们提供新服务，因为美国几家主要运营商目前提供的移动网络的网速已经差别不大，可以互相替代。

Last year, Verizon Wireless announced that it would start testing new wireless technology in 2016 in order to offer new services, including potentially ultrafast mobile Internet, sometime next year. Last month, ATT countered with its own tests — expected to start in Austin, Tex., by the end of 2016 — that could offer mobile speeds roughly 100 times faster than its current offering.“We will be ready when it’s ready,” said John Donovan, ATT’s chief strategy officer, who added that traditional rivals like Verizon and new arrivals like Google could eventually compete to offer 5G services. “Everywhere you don’t solve a problem, someone else might step in.”

去年，威瑞森无线(Verizon Wireless)宣布，它将在2016年开始测试新的无线技术，以便在明年某个时候提供可能包括超快移动互联网在内的新服务。上个月，作为反击，ATT也提出，自己计划于2016年底在德克萨斯州奥斯丁开始进行测试，有望提供比现在的网速快大约100倍的移动网络。“等它好的时候，我们就会一切就绪，”ATT首席战略官约翰·多诺万(John Donovan)说。他还表示，威瑞森这样的传统竞争对手和谷歌这样的新对手，最终都有可能参与5G服务的竞争。“不管是在哪个领域，只要有个问题你不解决，别人可能就会进来做。”

For Dr. Tafazolli, of the University of Surrey, whose team started working on 5G in late 2011, these battles have led to an increasing number of companies offering support — including the use of high-speed computer servers, costly radio antennas and millions of dollars of financing to research and build the next-generation wireless network on his college campus, he said. Their primary goal: to test their latest technology in a real-world setting.

萨里大学的塔法佐利自2011年末开始带领团队进行5G技术研发。他表示，这些竞争促使越来越多的企业为他们提供支持，包括高速服务器、价格昂贵的无线电天线，以及大把的资金，让他们可以在这所大学校园里研究和打造下一代无线网络。他们目前的首要目标是：在真实场景里测试他们的最新技术。

“In the race to 5G, everyone wants to be first,” he said.

“在5G技术这场比赛中，每个人都想拔得头筹，”他说。