separating 5g myth from reality
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T EC H N O LO G Y B U S I N ES S R ES EAR C H , I N C .
TBR SPECIAL REPORT
Separating 5G myth from reality
Michael Sullivan-Trainor, Telecom Practice Executive Analyst
May 15, 2015
The race to commercialize 5G, the next fastest mobile network, enabled by pairings of national vendors and operators, is reminiscent of the prior 2G, 3G and 4G evolutions. However, the path to 5G contains more than commercial services in densely populated cities or Olympic stadiums, where many of the demonstration cases will be staged. 5G is not about a technology standard; it is a concept or even a process of the wireless ecosystem coming to grips with the pervasiveness of mobile technology and the critical importance of mobility in business and consumer markets. Examples of the early path to 5G include an April 23, 2015, demonstration by Hong Kong Telecom (HKT) of the world’s first IP-RAN-based LTE Advanced system offering 450 Mbps and utilizing three FDD Carrier Aggregation. This advanced 4G service will be deployed in 2016, followed by the planned 1 Gbps service, or what some call 4.5G, currently in the lab. 5G will follow, offering 10 Gbps, based on massive MIMO and massive Carrier Aggregation. Huawei is collaborating closely with HKT to give China the putative lead in advanced cellular services. Japan’s NTT DoCoMo, which is tasked with delivering the first commercial 5G service in time for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, trialed 4.5 Gbps successfully in a test with Ericsson, one of eight vendors with which it is working. Korea’s SK Telecom is also motivated by national requirements to launch 5G demonstration services at the 2018 Winter Olympics. Samsung is tasked with supporting this effort. For all the trial activity and plans, the use cases are still far from clear. For example, in its demonstration use case, HKT downloaded the movie “Furious 7” and found that the instant mobile download speed decreased from six minutes to two minutes. A lot of trouble to avoid waiting for a movie, but 5G requires a lot more than that. Imagining the use cases for 5G is a key driver of the technology development, and the variety of cases leads to the conclusion that 5G may happen in 2020, but it will not happen all at once. It will appear like fireworks, popping and exploding here and there with use cases as diverse as uses of wireless technology. There may be small sparklers in 2018, but the journey of 5G as a process will extend well beyond the next five years.
5G Process Drivers The process of creating a 5G answer to the myriad use cases posed by the pervasiveness of mobile technology has been underway for at least five years. While the specifications for 5G are far from complete, consensus of the dozens of standards and defacto industry groups working on the technology has formed around four areas: speed, capacity, latency and technology, summarized in the following table.
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Category 5G Requirement Use cases
Speed Peak data rate of 10 Gbps Virtual reality, mobile video on demand, gaming, data analytics
Capacity 100 to 1,000 times more capacity than 4G
Internet of Things (i.e., applications requiring massive data transfer from numerous endpoint devices — cars, home appliances, containers, wearables, etc.)
Latency Single millisecond, which is 50 times faster than 4G
Real-time Internet of Things (i.e., where no delay is tolerable, such as remote medical procedures, driverless cars, mission-critical business/industrial applications)
Technology Densely deployed small cells, massive MIMO antenna designs, RAN technology internetworking
Indoor and outdoor applications for dense metro and building environments and scalable long-distance services that are connected constantly
NFV/SDN Required In the last several months, the NFV/SDN juggernaut to virtualize, automate and orchestrate the service provider network has overtaken the drive to 5G because, in many ways, 5G is also dependent on a highly automated intelligent network that can deliver efficiently the high speed, massive capacity and near-zero latency 5G use cases will require; add to that dependence the more immediate cost and service time-to-market efficiencies possible with NFV and SDN, and it is easy to see why the transformation of the network is prioritized. Further decisions about technical directions such as centralized versus decentralized control affect 5G as much as NFV and SDN, so 5G is in effect a driver of the new network. The pace of change in the industry suggests NFV and SDN will be in place in time for the engineering breakthroughs required to deliver 5G by 2020.
The EU Plans the Future While advanced network access speeds and capacity are being demonstrated in APAC and the U.S. continues to optimize 4G, the European Union (EU), which includes many members that have not yet launched LTE, is unifying behind its 5G leadership plan. At the 2015 Mobile World Congress, the EU Commission announced a multinational initiative called the 5G Public-Private Partnership (5G PPP), along with a €700 million fund to accelerate 5G development. The EU arguably missed the boat on 4G after leading the deployment of 3G, and 4G is most widely adopted in the U.S. With indications that China, Korea and Japan are planting their flag in the 5G leadership column, the EU could not stand by, so its recent initiative is about national, commercial and civic interests.
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According to the EU’s timeline, the following 5G events can be expected:
2015: 5G PPP research launched with proof of concept of core network elements, culminating in a global consensus on the broad definition, key functionalities and target timetable for 5G
2016 to 2018: Joint research between the EU, South Korea and Japan targeting frequency bands, supported by regulatory bodies, system definition and optimization, Pan-European experimental infrastructure, experimentation, validation trails, and standards requirement, culminating in the first showcase demonstrations at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea
2018 to 2020: Production of standards and large-scale demonstrations and trials; close to commercial deployment with selected operators and end users; more than 1 Gigabit bandwidth to be made available at the Tokyo Stadium for the 2020 Olympics, followed by operational deployment
Beyond 2020: First commercial offers by telecom operators along with optimized cost-effective end-user technology
Operator and Supplier Opportunities The vision of 5G is driving a powerful set of market initiatives to move the industry forward. Ericsson, Huawei and Samsung, among others, have staked out thought leadership and offered demonstrations while working furiously in their R&D labs to drive technology and hopefully value for their companies and customers. Operators such as NTT DoCoMo and Hong Kong Telecom have stepped forward with road maps of their own. However, the race is only just beginning and many new players will enter from the cloud and IT worlds to claim their share of the value. Additionally, digital service providers will stake a claim in the value chain as well, with or without network ownership. In a sense, 5G will support an industry struggling with transformation, but the business models will look far different than they do today.
Summary NFV and SDN, Internet of Things, digital media and 5G are moving along parallel paths to redefine not only the technical landscape, but also the business environment for the information and communications technology industry over the next decade. Predicting the winning industry play is fraught with challenges, but playing the game by placing bets on these future technologies (in accordance with a company’s competence and capability) is critical to survival. TBR believes there are successful models for each industry player, so long as they navigate by the compass points of the new technologies and use cases and release their hold over reliance on the old ones.
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