Viewpoint
The emergence of 5G technology will revolutionize many industries worldwide, providing an unrivaled mobile ecosystem to users. The technology will act as a catalyst for driving digital transformation and spearhead innovative business models worldwide. It promises to improve social governance efficiency and promise a slew of exciting new applications, transforming the active lifestyle of people’s homes, travel, and office.
During the recent Huawei Better World Summit 2020 Power Digitalization 2025, 5G industry experts shared the best way forward for the industry to fully leverage the 5G benefits.
At the event, Liu Baochang, Deputy Director of Information Energy Department, China Mobile Group Design Institute Co., Ltd, expounded that energy solutions are the foundation of an effective 5G network.
"Besides costs, in terms of device deployment, we also need to look at efficiency at site selection and renovating auxiliary facilities such as roads, buildings, and electric power," says Liu Baochang, Deputy Director of Information Energy Department, China Mobile Group Design Institute Co., Ltd.
Telcos need to keep the cost of 5G power consumption on a lower side to ensure that the technology remains financially sustainable and feasible. They need to take consistent actions to improve their architectural and site designs to minimize cost-pressures from increasing bills.
With over 460 million 5G connections expected by 2025.For Chinese telecom companies, managing the energy efficiency to power 5G has been the top agenda. Several studies and research efforts are being conducted to transform the power management and data centers to deliver more efficient and compact infrastructure to help address such issues.
"As 5G expands, a large number of micro base stations are needed to be deployed in complex street sites, office buildings, urban villages, and tunnels. In these scenarios, the power supply can be adversely impacted by frequent lightning strikes, line switching, voltage fluctuations, and impact load," Baochang elucidates.
Many suburban and rural cities report frequent power failure and outages. Therefore the industry experts advocate telcos to adopt a transformative approach to integrating smart ICT energy infrastructure to facilitate efficient construction and site facilities.
"ICT energy is a combination of information technology (bit) and energy technology(watt) to build reliable, efficient, and intelligent site energy networks. Digitalized, integrated, and intelligent 5G power meets energy construction requirements in all scenarios, including the core network (data center), aggregation layer, and site," Baochang illuminates.
In the pursuant of digital transformation and keeping itself ready for the massive 5G data demand, China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile operator by subscribers, is one of the frontrunners in deploying 5G energy-efficient solutions. The telecom operator has collaborated with Huawei to leverage its 5G eMIMO Power solution capabilities to deploy high-density integration of energy facilities, ensuring a smart management platform and quickly matching network evolution.
A critical element of the future-oriented 5G networks is their capability to provide a seamless and consistent user experience. With technologies such as IoT, machine to machine, and analytics forming a core of several future applications, addressing network power efficiency remain a critical area for telcos across the world.
