5G: The Hype and the Hope

 

With 4G becoming more and more widespread, the question of 5G was inevitably just a matter of time and, sure enough, that time has arrived. Promising high-speed Internet access with latency of nearly one millisecond, 5G is almost faster than can be imagined. So why do we need it? 

 

According to the European Commission’s Digital Economy and Society Commissioner Günther Oettinger, who spoke as part of a keynote titled ‘The Road to 5G’, 5G will become the infrastructure which everyone will use, anywhere and anytime. This, he continued, is because of the ongoing digitalisation of the world’s economy and society. 

 

“That same digitalisation is accelerating the need for 5G,” Oettinger continued. “It’s unstoppable. We are entering a new era of connectivity where billions of devices exchange data. From switches to heating and hospitals to factories – any industry will need to adjust to this reality. This new era requires a new network of communications which is not just about more speed and more capacity. It’s about the network infr astructure becoming as easily available and as pervasive as the air that we breathe. It needs to be ready at all times.”

 

Oettinger went on to describe how future networks need to become a development platform for the millions of applications currently on Smartphones or not yet realised. This, he said, represents a huge opportunity for the telecoms sector to reinvent itself as a provider of specialist network services for a series of industry partners. 

 

“To guarantee that connected cars will react in less than one second and avoid collisions, to make sure the right medicine gets to the right people, we need the right connectivity that not only guarantees open Internet but also allows specialised services to flourish,” continued Oettinger. “In a nutshell, 5G will become the nervous system of our digital economy and society.” 

 

While this sounds impressive, is it realistic? Oettinger concluded with a call for the world to embrace 5G. In other words, to embrace the opportunity it offers to reinvent the telecoms landscape, a concerted global effort is required.

 

Examples of this are already being seen. The 5G Infrastructure Public-Private Partnership (5G PPP) has been initiated by the EU Commission and industry manufacturers, telecommunications operators, service providers, SMEs and researchers. The partnership will deliver solutions, architectures, technologies and standards for the ubiquitous next generation communication infrastructures of the coming decades. Meanwhile, the world’s first global organisation dedicated to the development and delivery of 5G has been officially launched at Mobile World Congress. The 5G World Alliance (5GWA) will take a holistic, integrated approach across all technologies in order to gain support for seamless worldwide networking interoperability, empowerin g the end user through a truly end-to-end experience.

 

At the keynote, collaboration was a common theme, with a similar call also made by Steve Mollenkopf, Qualcomm Incorporated’s CEO. He said that, in order to realise 5G, a lot of innovation is still needed and, to achieve the required level, the bar needs to be set high to create big jumps. 

 

The question of whether this can be done, then, seems to be one for the operators and the technology providers. Taking to the stage to give the view of the latter was Ken Hu, Deputy Chairman & Rotating CEO of Huawei. The presentation marked a debut for Huawei as the company’s first time presenting in Auditorium 1 of Hall 4 at the Fira Gran Via.  

 

As well as addressing the all-important question of how we get 5G, Hu also aimed to answer what it is and why there is a need for it. 

 

“In my view 5G is something which will help us overcome challenges which cannot be addressed by existing mobile technology, for example, the huge number of connections and network latency,” he said. “With 5G the number of connections will reach one million per KM2 so will have the capability to reach over 100 billion connections. This will help us to connect all areas of our lives, from watches, glasses, shoes, containers, even robotic arms in factories – the list goes on and on. This capability is also extremely valuable for industry applications.”

 

According to Hu, the question of why 5G is needed is answered, in short, by latency. Expanding this with an example of connected cars needing latency of less than one millisecond in order to stop in time to avoid a collision, Hu went on to explain that while research into 5G started 16 years ago, the standards are still not yet fully defined. 

 

“So, how can we get there? At Huawei, we bel ieve three key actions are needed: Open collaboration, heavy investment in innovation and an evolutionary commercial strategy,” he said.  “In the past, the telecoms industry has led standard developments in our telecoms networks and has failed to meet certain demands of the industry sector. 5G can only become a true enabler if we learn from this and have open collaboration across all industries. Secondly, intense technological innovations will play a big part in enabling 5G technology. Huawei’s solution that aims to enhance spectrum for more connections is just one example of this. Meanwhile evolutionary commercialization strategies will create new business models.” 

 

So far, then, the road to 5G seems relatively smooth. But technology providers should not be too quick to implement solutions that promise utopia but fail to deliver. This word of warning was added to the session by Chairman and CEO of Orange Stéphane Richard.

 

“In my view we must not jump too fast into the next generation of networks,” he said “4G has been conceived to go along for the next couple of years and is tremendously successful everywhere so let’s enjoy it. 5G will be a very industrial project. This means it has to be launched at the perfect time in order to ignite the Internet of Things (IoT) revolution. We should remember what happened with 3G and the delay between the launch of the process and the physical reality – it took years and the launch resulted in a lot of disappointment, so timing here has to be very important.” 

 

Ken Hu, Deputy Chairman & Rotating CEO of Huawei responded to this need for caution by revealing details of Huawei’s 4.5G. 

 

“4.5G will leverage 5G innovations and harness 5G research,” he said. “We are working cl osely with customers on these 4.5G solutions. “We believe this will stimulate demand for 5G and extend market leadership from 4G to 5G. The new world of digital industrial revolution presents enormous opportunities for the telecom industry and technology innovation will help us get there faster. The doors to our future digital world have opened and we are at beginning of the beginning.”