Samsung Electronics in partnership with KDDI has shared some results from a realistic 5G demonstration in Japan. Engineers were able to achieve peak speeds around 1.7 Gbps on a train traveling just over 60 MPH. Actual tests occurred from October 17 to October 19 in the city of Saitama near Tokyo.

During the test run, simultaneous upload and download of large files proved to be possible. An 8K video was downloaded while a 4K video recorded on the train was sent upstream. Samsung was using its own complete solution of 5G hardware for these tests.

Results have verified that Samsung's 5G technology is low latency and can support a large number of connections to a single access point. After very promising test figures, Yoshiaki Uchida of KDDI declared, "the success of today's demonstration in everyday locations such as a train and train station is an important milestone indicating 5G commercialization is near."

Current generation 4G LTE technology already enables a vast network of connected devices, but data use is still fairly restricted without high service costs. Implementing 5G networks opens up new possibilities of where and how connected devices can be used. Access to high speed and high throughput networking could fundamentally change expectations of what is reasonably feasible to achieve.

Current goals for Samsung and KDDI are to have commercial 5G technology implemented in 2020. Their partnership goes back to 2015 with collaboration on 5G millimeter wave evaluations. 5G is a technology long under development that will hopefully bring high speed internet connections to all without the limitations of current generation hardware.