Joint 5G standards to be set

Taiwan's economic authority approved the establishment of a communication industry standards association in Taipei on Feb 3. The association will enhance the island's industrial competitiveness and cooperate with the Chinese mainland to set standards for fifth-generation mobile networks, Xinhua News Agency reported.

"Taiwan and the mainland have reached a consensus in jointly formulating 5G standards. The two sides have already carried out technological cooperation and how to jointly standardize the achievements will become a new highlight in the future," Chou Sheng-lin, secretarygeneral of the association, said at the opening ceremony.

Chou told the Chinatimes.com the initial framework of 5G standards would be released in 2017. If Taiwan can grasp this opportunity, it can map out the layout of key patents in advance, he said.

Jonathan Tsang, vice-chairman of Taiwan-headquartered computer manufacturer Asus, who was appointed as head of the association, echoed Chou's opinion.

Tsang said in the past overseas industrial giants usually held the rights to formulate technological standards and had most of the related intellectual property rights, so manufacturers in Taiwan had to pay a large sum of money for production authorization, which weakened their competitiveness.

Given that the information and communications technology industry is transforming and the era of the Internet of Things is approaching, the establishment of industry standards and cost-effective patent portfolio are priorities, he added.

The industry association has nearly 50 well-known local companies as its members, including Asus, Acer, MediaTek, Honghai and ChungHwa Telecom. The number is expected to reach 100 by the end of June.

The association will issue technical white papers based on industrial demands, generate research reports in terms of feasibility and development trends and propose related industry standards, CTIMES magazine reported.

Chou told the magazine that several standards would be released soon, including those related to intelligent security monitoring, open network video interfacing and audio system open application programming interfaces. The association will promote the implementation of the standards as quickly as possible, he said.

Chou said the association hopes to establish partnerships with international and regional standard-setting organizations, such as 3GPP, or the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, and OneM2M.