ZTE teasing 5G Gigabit smartphone for MWC 2017

5G connectivity is expected to achieve a theoretical transmission rate of up to 100x compared to 4G LTE. According to the BMVI (Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure), the groundwork and standards for 5G will soon be approved for public deployment by as early as 2020. Though a few years off, more smartphone manufacturers are already planning their first 5G handsets including ZTE.

The ZTE Gigabit smartphone promises to deliver smooth 360-degree VR capabilities and 4K video playback with a focus on cloud storage. Since the device will be capable of wireless transfer rates of up to 1 Gbps, the manufacturer is boasting it as an "instant" cloud device for very quick downloads and uploads. Other than these few facts, however, ZTE has not yet provided any more details and will likely reveal more come MWC later this month.

It's common for manufacturers to unveil prototypes and work-in-progress technology that may never come to market at trade shows. MWC 2015, for example, held demonstrations of the potential of 5G with transfer rates of up to 3.5 Gbps. The ZTE Gigabit may resurface as something very different if it ever becomes available to the public.

German telecommunications company Telekom announced at IFA 2016 last year that 5G would carry a latency of just 1 ms. The quick response times are said to be necessary for real-time applications like autonomous driving or augmented reality. The final 5G protocol will be a skeleton for the growing vision of the Internet of Things (IoT).

The MWC 2017 ZTE booth will be at stand 3F30 on Hall 3.

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