The Obama administration said the US will spend $400 million over the next seven years to research and develop next-generation wireless technologies.
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The NSF funding, part of a new White House Advanced Wireless Research Initiative, includes $50 million as part of a partnership with more than 20 mobile companies and trade groups to roll out advanced wireless testing sites in four US cities.
The program will invest in efforts by researchers experimenting with and testing novel technologies, applications and services capable of making wireless communication faster, smarter, more responsive and more robust over the next seven years, according to the NSF.
Efforts to upgrade USA communications infrastructure to 5G technology got a big boost from the federal government today.
Each platform will be comprised of a network of software-defined radio antennas blanketing their respective cities, essentially mimicking existing cellular networks. At the same time, the administration and government agencies will be working with a broad array of tech industry players-including top-tier carriers like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile USA, and such tech vendors as Oracle, Intel, Qualcomm, Juniper Networks and Samsung-on a number of these initiatives, continuing the public-private partnerships that the government has leveraged in driving the adoption of 4G networks. NSF is also committing $350 million over the next seven years that will take research from the concept phase to real-world testing at scale.
“That vote made the United States the first country in the world to make vast quantities of high-frequency millimeter wave spectrum available for both licensed and unlicensed use”, the White House said in a statement.
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“Collectively, these spectrum policy and research efforts will accelerate the deployment of a new generation of wireless networks that are up to 100 times faster than today”, the White House wrote in a press release. The NSF will choose four U.S. cities in which to build the platforms through a competition.
