Insight
We caught up with Ian Fogg, Research Director – Network Innovation at CCS Insight, to discuss some of the exciting infrastructure solutions on show at Mobile World Congress as the industry readies itself for 5.5G
It is well understood that 5G is evolving far faster than previous generations of mobile technology, with infrastructure innovation happening at a similarly blistering pace. With 3GPP’s Release 18 being frozen later this year, operators are already preparing for the next systemic shift: 5.5G.
For CCS Insight’s Ian Fogg, one interesting trend already underway in 5G is the increasing support being provided for additional spectrum bands in radio products.
“When we look at the actual product lineup, one of the things that really stands out is the shift towards having greater band support on the FDD (frequency division duplexing) product range,” said Fogg. “That’s really important because those bands tend to be the lower frequencies, the ones that get inside buildings, and they’re the ones most commonly used for 5G.”
The shift to 5.5G will notably coincide with the switch off of 2G and 3G networks in many markets, meaning operators will have additional spectrum to use for 4G and 5G, thereby making these FDD advances all the more important.
While these advancements in spectrum efficiency will help develop far more effective networks, 5.5G’s real promise lies in its ability to help develop smarter networks, incorporating AI and automation at scale. In turn, this will offer up new use cases for operators and new paths to monetisation.
“Better network performance and machine learning in the RAN gives you that bread-and-butter piece to deliver a better quality network experience that you can then monetise,” explained Fogg.
Indeed, when it comes to monetisation, one of the biggest opportunities on show at Mobile World Congress was a renewed interest in mmWave, particularly for fixed wireless access (FWA).
“There’s a big second push for mmWave in many markets, such as India and China,” he explained, noting that the spectrums high capacity makes it ideal for FWA. “If service providers just use their traditional, smartphone-based bands for FWA, they will clog up. This means they have to make a decision between high ARPU per gigabyte for a smartphone user or low ARPU per gigabyte for a FWA user. But mmWave has so much capacity […] you can fully support a FWA business line and all the new revenues that they support without damaging the smartphone business.”
But perhaps the most exciting aspect of 5G’s ongoing evolution will be the new use cases 5.5G will enable.
“With [3GPP’s] Release 18 we’ll finally have robust network slicing,” said Fogg, noting that this has long been a target of.
In addition, 5G Reduced Capabilities (RedCap) will allow 5G to be used far more widely for more low-powered devices, making the technology even more versatile.
“This offers the ability to connect 5G to many more devices, opening up opportunities with the IoT, as well as some fixed wireless use cases,” said Fogg.
You can watch our full interview with Ian Fogg, Research Director – Network Innovation at CCS Insight, below:
