Have you ever been out and about on your phone and thought to yourself, “wow, I can’t believe how much better 5G has made my life?” Me neither. A Sydney startup hopes to change that, and it's just got a chunk of cash to do it.
Millibeam has raised $6 million for its goal to design chipsets that take advantage of “mmWave” 5G. This frequency is estimated to be up to 26 times faster than standard 5G but can only cover small areas. Breakthrough Victoria and earlier backer Main Sequence contributed $3 million apiece.
The short range of mmWave 5G makes building coverage areas prohibitively costly using existing tech. But Millibeam founder Venkata Gutta says that doesn’t have to be the case.
“[mmWave] is extremely expensive, and that's why we don't see it,” said Gutta. “Our approach was to try to see how we could reduce the cost tenfold.”
