Japan’s leading mobile operator by subscribers, NTT DOCOMO, has entered into a partnership with leading cellular baseband solution provider MediaTek to drive the future development of 5G technology. In a joint press release, the two companies say they will collaborate on developing new 5G air interface and chipsets required for 5G devices, raising spectrum efficiency and increasing data capacity. MediaTek claims to be one of the major technology companies selected by DOCOMO ‘to contribute expertise and technology innovations needed for supporting the launch of new 5G networks by 2020’. The two firms plan to implement the transmission experiment in both indoor and outdoor environments in 2017, and carry out new wireless interface and chipsets development from 2018 onwards.