Some mobile stakeholders were frustrated that the first wave of 5G standards, 3GPP Release 15, stuck with OFDM in the air interface, rather than adopting a more radical modulation technology. However, additional standards are likely to creep into Release 16 standards next year, provide renewed opportunities for new approaches from giants like Huawei, to start-ups like Cohere Technologies, with its OTFS (Orthogonal Time Frequency Space) modulation scheme. This sits on top of OFDM and claims significantly lower susceptibility to fading, which boosts data rates and reliability. For now, companies like Cohere are keeping their inventions alive with friendly operator trials and by targeting use cases, like fixed wireless and backhaul, where standards-based interoperability are less important. The company, which came…