5G ENSURE has received funding from the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation H2020 under grant agreement No 671562 | Duration November 2015 / October 2017
Submitted by s.parker on July 5, 2016
As the telecoms industry gathered at the 5G World trade show in London last week, it seemed to agree on what 5G should achieve, at least technologically.
1. More than a technological shift
"5G is much more than technology” was a recurrent theme as the industry gathered around all things 5G. Technologically, the industry is by and large in agreement on what future 5G networks should achieve: much higher speeds, ultra-reliability and low latency. It should make it possible to cope with the rapidly increasing IP traffic while enabling new types of applications, supporting in particular massive IoT usage. The first standard specifications will be released in 2018 and the first commercial deployments are expected around 2020. According to Nokia, commercial 5G could even become a reality before 2020.
5G will usher in a ”softwarisation” of networks, prompting operators to transition from box-based to software-based networks. This technological shift will put pressure on operators to implement more agile, DevOps- and business-driven operational models. Operators that have implemented network functions virtualisation (NFV) and software-defined networking (SDN) may well have a head-start here.
2. Searching for use cases
5G will be demand-driven. Vendors are competing to get their 5G or pre-5G technology implemented while operators are scratching their head to figure out new use cases. Mission-critical applications and the Internet of Things (IoT) have earlier on been identified as areas where many use cases will come from. But many players are now also saying that the first use case for 5G might well be mobile broadband, just as was the case with 4G. There, consumers might well be the strongest revenue generator, at least in the early days. In that respect, video and possibly virtual reality could be key drivers. Network slicing is furthermore hailed as the way forward to offer differentiated services. It might however require a new approach on net neutrality.
3. 5G competition heating up
Amidst mounting competition, Nokia demonstrated at 5G World a 5G-ready network, a world’s first according to the vendor. The solution takes advantage of Nokia’s proprietary AirScale Radio Access technology and includes its Cloud Packet Core running on an AirFrame data center platform.
In the meantime, ZTE, among other vendors, is pushing ahead on the so-called 5G New Radio, the upcoming standard for radio access, while promoting a pre-5G approach as a way of transitioning to 5G when it becomes available.
Source: Industrial IoT 5G
Volker Held, Head of 5G Market Development at http://Networks.Nokia.com, lists the takeaways in this order: 5G use cases, 5G-ready technology and 5G architecture beyond radio.
He wraps up his blog on 5G readiness: 3 takeaways with these words.
Despite the work that still needs to be done the industry is quite ahead in the standardization process, more ahead than we thought we would be a year ago. We can expect the first standards to be finalized by the end of 2017, which means commercial 5G services could be deployed even before 2020 when the whole set of standards are expected to be complete. The foundations and even some walls are available for the future 5G ‘home’. The broad industry interested in 5G is yet to fully imagine all the possibilities of what 5G will deliver or what it will create for people. But Nokia has made a valuable start, demonstrating to operators what they will need – an architecture versatile enough to provide the seamless fabric for our future connected lives.
