Professional Documents
Culture Documents
FEBRUARY 2016
Mobile zeroes in on 5G
The mobile sector has a vision and a map,
but when can they really call it 5G?
ZTE
Published by Platinum Sponsor
5G Insights Editors Letter 3
U
p until the middle of 2015, 5G was a fairly abstract term,
4 Newswire
more concept than technology. That was the nature of
the beast, of course. While the label 5G was initially 7 Cover: The mobile sector
applied to the idea of making radio links 100x faster gets IMT-2020 vision for 5G
than LTE, it soon became clear that there would be far
more to 5G than the radio interface itself it would be an amalgam 12 Q&A: ZTE
of next-gen technologies that would be needed to support the com-
ing data deluge and the billions of devices (read: things) that would 14 Viewpoint: 5G options and
be driving it. In that sense, 5G was defined less by its technologi-
opportunities
cal components and data-throughput capabilities, and more by what
kinds of services, applications and devices they would need to be
16 Analyst View: 5G hype needs
able to support.
Still, the telecoms industry thrives on roadmaps, and thats what a reality check
they got last year when the International Telecommunication Unions
ITU-R Working Party defined the overall goals, processes and time-
line for 5G development and, helpfully, some suggested perfor-
mance benchmarks that 5G should aspire to.
The devil is in the details, of course, but as our cover story ex-
plains, the upshot is that the mobile sector now has a much clearer
idea of what 5G should be, and how to get there even if not every-
one will agree on when theyve arrived at their 5G destination.
Our exclusive Q&A with Dr Gang Bo, GM for 5G Products at ZTE, Published by Questex Asia Ltd.
digs deeper into how far along weve already come on the 5G road- For additional information 5G Insights, please visit our website
www.telecomasia.net or contact:
map, whats coming in 2016, and how cellcos can get started on their
Managing Director Jonathan Bigelow jbigelow@questexasia.com
5G journey if they havent done so already.
Meanwhile, on the analyst front, Mayssaa Issa and Akmal Abdul Associate Publisher Jessie Cheung jcheung@questexasia.com
Business Development Director Jebb Lewis jebblewis@questexasia.com
Wahab of Delta Partners discuss how 5G technology is a potential
Editor-In-Chief John C. Tanner jtanner@questexasia.com
catalyst for operator leadership in the new era of IoT. But for all 5Gs Managing Editor Stefan Hammond shammond@questexasia.com
opportunities and possibilities, dont fall for the inevitable hype, Online Editor Fiona Chau fchau@questexasia.com
Art Director Pauline Wong pwong@questexasia.com
warns Ovums Mike Roberts.
Editorial and publishing office
Flip the page for details. n Questex Asia Ltd
13/F, 88 Hing Fat Street, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2559 2772 Fax: +852 2559 7002
John C. Tanner Website: www.telecomasia.net
Subscription Hotline: +852 2589 1313
Telecom Asia, editor-in-chief
Subscription Fax: +852 2559 2015
E-mail: customer_service@telecomasia.net
C
hinas Ministry of Industry and R&D team, was quoted as saying that the
Information Technology (MIIT) efforts are meant to support the formula-
has begun research and tests on tion of global 5G standards and boost the
5G technology, which they hope development of the telecom industry.
to commercialize by 2020. According to the report, China has
Xinhua reported that research and more than 905 million mobile Internet
test work will be completed by 2018, fol- users and about 380 million are
lowed by trials toward commercialization 4G users. n
to be conducted by domestic telcos.
Cao Shumin, who leads the MIITs 5G
E
ricsson and China Mobile Re- well as innovative RAN features to support and more active cooperation between Er-
search Institute signed a memo- future industrial use cases. icsson and China Mobile will foster tangi-
randum of understanding to As part of the agreement, China Mo- ble results in 5G by helping to drive stand-
collaborate on 5G research and bile and Ericsson will also work together on ardization, research and development,
development as well as IoT technology. the IoT segment, including demonstration, and creating an integrated, cross-industry
The MOU is initially for a five-year verification, and trial of narrowband IoT ecosystem.
period and covers verification, trial, and for machine-type communication, as well China Mobile initially launched 4G ser-
standardization of a new 5G air interface as collaboration on corresponding vertical vices using TD-LTE technology in Decem-
for commercial deployment from 2020. use cases. ber 2013. By the end of November 2015,
China Mobile and Ericsson will also As the next generation of mobile in- the operator had over 287 million 4G sub-
focus on network architecture evolution frastructure, 5G is the key pillar for ICT scribers, accounting for nearly 35% of its
towards 5G, including close interworking development globally, said Yuhong Huang, total mobile customer base. n
between 5G and the evolution of LTE, as deputy head of CMRI. We feel that closer
S
K Telecom, together with five ven- ics OIC devices (home appliances), Atmels said in a statement.
dors, demonstrated interworking sensor and lighting development kit, and a OneM2M is meant to provide a com-
between two different IoT stand- gateway supplied by the oneM2M-OIC In- mon M2M service layer that can be embed-
ards at the 2016 Consumer Elec- terworking Solution developed by KETI and ded within various hardware and software
tronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada. Axstone. to connect devices. This standard currently
SK Telecom along with Samsung They were able to control the OIC de- has 216 participating partners and mem-
Electronics, Korea Electronics Technol- vices via a smartphone by connecting the bers.
ogy Institute (KETI), Amtel, and Axstone two different IoT platforms. The OIC was created in July 2014 by
successfully interconnected the oneM2M Interworking between different IoT leading technology companies with the
and Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC) standards is important it can dramati- goal of defining the industrys connectivity
standards. cally expand the overall IoT ecosystem by requirements and aims to establish com-
The five vendors used ThingPlug (SK boosting the development of IoT products mon ground on interoperability of billions
Telecoms IoT platform developed based on and services that can seamlessly interoper- of IoT devices. Currently, it has around 100
the oneM2M standard), Samsung Electron- ate regardless of standards, the company members. n
5G Insights Newswire 5
T
he Wi-Fi Alliance has announced nected devices predicted soon across this slower-than-prophesied growth are
a new wireless standard dubbed many different areas, including automo- security concerns and a lack of a unified
HaLow which extends Wi-Fis biles, smart homes, industrial, and retail. underpinning technology. HaLow might
reach down into the 900-MHz HaLow will interoperate with exist- go some way towards alleviating the lat-
band and is expected to keep the 802.11 ing 802.11x devices, bringing the IoT into ter concern, though thats still far from
family at the center of the developing IoT. the 6.8-billion-strong ecosystem of Wi-Fi certain. n
The new standard, 802.11ah, com- devices, the group said in its announce-
bines lower power requirements with a ment.
lower frequency, which means those sig- Like existing Wi-Fi, 802.11ah will pro-
nals propagate better. vide IP-based connectivity, allowing de-
This offers a much larger effec- vices to communicate with a broad range
tive range than current Wi-Fi standards of other hardware.
(which operate on 2.4-GHz and 5-GHz fre- The IoT has provided more smoke
quencies), and lets the newer technology than fire thus far grandiose predictions
penetrate walls and doors more easily. about the numbers of connected devices
The alliance, which refers to 802.11ah are commonplace, but widespread up-
as HaLow, said the technology is well take has been relatively limited.
suited to the vast numbers of new con- The generally accepted reasons for
J
apans KDDI has entered into an high-quality network performance and ments, as well as capabilities based on
R&D partnership with Ericsson user experience to address the needs SDN and NFV technologies.
covering key 5G technology com- and expectation of our customers, said The vendor has multiple R&D col-
ponents. Yoshiaki Uchinda, KDDI managing exec- laborations with operators in nations ex-
The companies have agreed to de- utive officer for technology. pected to lead the adoption of 5G.
velop a joint understanding of 5G use Through our joint efforts with Eric- These include two partnerships in
case, requirements, and deployment sson we will study 5G technologies and South Korea: one with SK Telecom to
scenarios. take an important step toward bringing trial core 5G technologies that recently
The agreement also covers the eval- 5G capabilities to the market. resulted in the first demonstration of 5G
uation of the performance and applica- Ericsson is currently involved in 5G small cells, and the other a deal with LG
bility of 5G components including radio test network initiatives covering the in- U+ to develop 5G and IoT technologies
and core technologies. teractions between mobile devices and including narrowband LTE. n
We are committed to providing networks in indoor and outdoor environ-
3
HK, the mobile arm of Hutchison parties. Kong and Japan.
Telecommunications Hong Kong This arrangement enables VoLTE 3 HK will continue working closely
Holdings (HTHKH), has complet- roaming service to be made available in with DoCoMo and other partners to take
ed a bilateral international voice- fast-track fashion to deliver superior end- the VoLTE roaming experience to other
over-LTE roaming trial with Japans NTT to-end world-class quality HD voice and geographies, the firm added.
DoCoMo. video roaming, said 3 HK in a statement. The company, which plans to roll out
The trial used S8 Home Routed When up and running commercially, FDD/TDD LTE-Advanced network in early
(S8HR) architecture, an LTE data roam- this advanced network design will enable 2016, also launched VoWiFi service in
ing-based technology that can be de- 3 Hong Kong and DoCoMo customers to June. n
ployed without IMS interaction between enjoy top-quality VoLTE roaming in Hong
6 Newswire 5G Insights
T
he Australian Communications the changes would enable the use of developments.
and Media Authority (ACMA) the bands for a variety of applications The ACMA has proposed other reg-
has proposed changes in the na- including data telemetry, machine data ulatory change to prepare for the IoT,
tions regulatory arrangements and monitoring, sensor networks, smart including the addition of the new fre-
to ease access to spectrum for use in metering, security systems and indus- quency bands for radio-determination
the IoT. trial control. transmitters used as industrial sensors
Proposed revisions would remove The changes should encourage in- and in-ground ultra-wide bandwidth
a technical barrier to the operation of novations in the M2M and IoT spaces, transmitters used in automated parking
narrowband low-power wireless access he said. The proposals are a part of our management systems.
(LPWA) networks in the 900-MHz, 2.4- work in looking at Australias state of The regulator will accept input on the
GHz and 5.8-GHz bands. readiness for IoT and identifying areas proposed changes until February 26. n
ACMA chair Chris Chapman said where the ACMA can further assist IoT
T
he mobile industry has agreed Machinia Research estimates that high-quality managed networks, service
on technology standards for the the LPWA market will be worth $589 bil- platforms and world-class customer
emerging Low Power Wide Area lion by 2020, or 47% of the total M2M management capabilities, said Alex Sin-
(LPWA) market. market. clair, GSMA acting director general.
The new LPWA standard has been The GSMA said its mobile IoT initia- The LPWA market is a high-growth
accepted by the 3GPP, the GSMA has an- tive, which is supported by 27 major mo- area of the Internet of Things and rep-
nounced. bile operators, OEMs, chipset, module resents a huge opportunity in its devel-
Narrowband IoT, extended coverage and infrastructure companies, is now opment, said Sinclair. A common and
GPRS (EC-GPRS) and LTE-machine type working to accelerate the development global vision will remove fragmentation,
communication (LTE-MTC) all form part of LPWA solutions. accelerate the availability of industry
of the new standards and will be includ- This is an important step in ena- standard solutions and help the market
ed in 3GPP Release 13. Standards are de- bling operators to deliver industry stand- to fulfill its potential. n
signed to cover all LPWA use cases. ard solutions by extending their existing
W
orldwide spending on the fully met with traditional IT, which is al- spectively.
IoT will reach $698.6 bil- lowing IoT investments to accelerate. Both industries have been connect-
lion this year and grow at Second, government investments in in- ing their supply chains, products, cus-
a 17% CAGR to nearly $1.3 frastructure development and local busi- tomers, and even workers for some time
trillion in 2019, according to IDC. ness modernization, in China, India and now, and really embrace the value of
The Asia-Pacific region is leading the the Philippines for example, are incorpo- business outcomes, said Vernon Turner,
way with more than 40% of the world- rating more and more IoT elements. SVP and IoT Research Fellow at IDC.
wide total coming from this region in And third, a burgeoning new con- Over the next five years, however, the
2015. sumer class is accelerating expenditures industries forecast to have the fastest
Marcus Torchia, IDC research man- in goods and services, including those IoT spending growth will be insurance
ager for IoT, said the regions robust IoT with IoT components. (31.8% CAGR), healthcare, and consum-
spending outlook builds on three dy- Among industry verticals, manufac- er. The fast-expanding consumer IoT
namics. turing and transportation led the way in market is forecast to be the third-largest
First, that developing countries worldwide IoT spending with 2015 totals IoT spending category by the end of the
technology investment needs are not of $165.6 billion and $78.7 billion, re- forecast period. n
5G Insights Cover Story 7
Mobile zeroes in on 5G
Its 2016, and the mobile industry finally has a clear idea of what 5G is,
and how to get there, although not everyone will agree on when theyve
arrived at their destination
John C. Tanner
8 Cover Story 5G Insights
A
round this time last requirements of mobile data usage. and healthcare.
year, the mobile sec- Put another way, the 5G concept 5G also must support high
tor was finally starting was defined less by its technologi- user density not only in terms of
to rally around the idea cal components and data-through- crowded areas like shopping malls,
of looking ahead to 5G, put capabilities, and more by what stadiums, festivals, traffic jams
even though there wasnt really a kinds of services, applications and and emergency scenarios, but also
consensus on just what 5G actually devices they would need to be able in terms of the Internet of Things
was at least in terms of technol- to support. (IoT). The IoT has its own require-
ogy. Previous evolutions to 3G and That concept was formalized ments that go beyond density, such
4G, while technologically innovative in mid-2015 when the International as power consumption, transmis-
and challenging, were essentially Telecommunication Unions ITU-R sion power, and latency require-
next-gen RAN upgrades with re- Working Party defined the overall ments all of which will vary greatly
lated architectural improvements, goals, processes and timeline for depending on the specific device
which was fairly straightforward 5G development. Code-named and application. A report from the
compared to the nebulous concept IMT-2020, the ITUs definition of Global mobile Suppliers Association
of 5G being kicked around at indus- 5G and its performance param- (GSA) classifies key IoT apps into
try conferences. eters were shaped by the ITU-R two broad categories: (1) massive
However, there was a general Working Partys understanding of machine-type communications (M-
understanding that 5G was far the current trends driving mobile MTC), which involves huge volumes
more than a next-generation radio data usage today and where all this of low-cost devices and modules for
interface it was that and a collec- is headed over the next five years. sensor networks, connected home,
tion of other technologies, from ex- Obviously there are a lot of de- smart metering, and (2) mission-
isting LTE-A networks and Wi-Fi hot- tails to be worked out between now critical apps like connected cars,
spots to small cells, SDN/NFV and and then not just within the ITU industrial automation and health-
cloud technologies, work- but among other standards bodies related apps like remote surgery,
ing together to meet like the 3GPP and IEEE, and indus- where high reliability and low laten-
the escalating try organizations like the GSM As- cy are critical.
sociation and the NGMN Alliance, 5G also has to be able to pro-
etc. But from this point on, the mo- vide high quality at high mobility
bile sector has a much clearer idea which is to say, it has to provide the
of what 5G should be, and how to same (or at least similar) quality of
get there. A few operators in Asia- experience whether youre sitting at
Pacific and elsewhere have already home or on a high-speed train.
started down the road to 5G, al- Not unexpectedly, it will also
though true to form for the mobile have to support mobile high-defini-
tech sector it seems not everyone tion multimedia, from Ultra HD dis-
will agree on when theyve arrived at plays, multi-view HD displays and
their destination. mobile 3D projections to immersive
video conferencing, augmented
IMT-2020 vision reality and mixed reality displays
According to Recommendation and interfaces. And these wont be
ITU-R M.2083-0 (which outlines limited to TV and games they will
the framework and objectives of also be used for medical treatment,
IMT-2020), a key requirement for safety, and security. That in turn
5G is extremely low latency and means that more and more mobile
high reliability for apps like cloud apps and services will government-
services, augmented reality and related, including e-government,
virtual reality, as well as M2M apps smart cities, public protection and
like driverless cars, real-time traffic disaster relief communication, edu-
control optimization, emergency cation, healthcare, etc.
and disaster response, smart grids And all of this will require sup-
Security
5G Insights
Insights Cover
Newswire
Story 9
port for extremely accurate po- and visibility they need to support Latency: the contribution by the
sitioning as new location-based the deluge of apps, services and radio network to the time from
services emerge for things ranging connections coming down the road. when the source sends a packet to
from emergency rescue services to Cloud RAN (C-RAN) will play when the destination receives it (in
drones. a major role in ensuring that base- ms).
band and higher-layer processing Mobility: maximum speed (km/h)
Technology roadmap resources can be managed and al- at which a defined QoS and seam-
IMT-2020 also takes into ac- located dynamically on demand. less transfer between radio nodes
count technological developments Inter-cell coordination schemes which may belong to different lay-
already in the pipeline that will play like self-organizing network (SON) ers and/or radio access technolo-
a role in the evolution of 5G. technology will enable operators to gies can be achieved.
On the RAN side, the most improve the opex efficiency of multi- Connection density: total number
well-publicized developments are RAT and multi-layer networks. of connected and/or accessible de-
centered around carrier aggrega- Then there are technologies vices per unit area (per km2).
tion, advanced antenna technolo- designed to enhance mobile broad- Energy efficiency: on the network
gies like 3D-beamforming, active band service QoS, such as small side, energy efficiency refers to the
antenna systems, massive MIMO cells, License Assisted Access quantity of information bits trans-
and network MIMO that promise (LAA), Evolved Multimedia Broad- mitted to/ received from users, per
better spectrum efficiency. Particu- cast and Multicast Service (eM- unit of energy consumption of the
larly in Asia, theres also been a lot BMS), dynamic adaptive streaming RAN (in bit/Joule). On the device
of work on dual-mode TDD-FDD and over HTTP (DASH) to accommo- side, energy efficiency refers to
dynamic TDD to enhance spectrum date more video streaming content quantity of information bits per unit
flexibility. in existing infrastructure, context of energy consumption of the com-
Theres also a lot of activity to aware applications for more person- munication module (in bit/Joule).
develop advanced waveforms, mod- alized services, and proximity-based Spectrum efficiency: average
ulation and coding, and multiple techniques to enable direct device- data throughput per unit of spec-
access technologies aimed at im- to-device (D2D) communication. trum resource and per cell (bits per
proving spectral efficiency, such as second/Hz).
filtered OFDM (FOFDM), filter bank This is 5G Area traffic capacity: total traffic
multi-carrier modulation (FBMC), With all that in mind and with throughput served per geographic
pattern division multiple access the key caveat that 5G has to be area (in Mbps/m2).
(PDMA), sparse code multiple ac- conceptualized and designed not When IMT-2020 was first an-
cess (SCMA), interleave division only for the applications and ser- nounced, many media reports focused
multiple access (IDMA) and low vices the industry knows are com- primarily on the first parameter peak
density spreading (LDS). ing, but for the apps and services data rate if only because thats the
Other RAN technology devel- we havent even thought of the one consumers relate to the most.
opments includes simultaneous ITU has developed a list of eight key After all, faster data rates from the
Tx/Rx on the same frequency with parameters that should define 5Gs previous generation were the primary
self-interference cancellation, flex- capabilities: marketing focus of 3G and 4G services.
ible backhaul and dynamic radio Peak data rate: maximum Initial reports claimed that IMT-2020
access configurations, higher-order achievable data rate (Gbps) un- would provide peak rates of 20 Gbps.
modulation for small cells, joint der ideal conditions per user/ Thats true in a sense. ITU-R
management of multiple radio ac- device. M.2083-0 does assign actual values
cess technologies (multi-RATs) and User experienced data rate: to each of the eight parameters, and
flexible uplink/downlink resource achievable data rate (Mbps or it does say that 5G will support peak
allocation. Gbps) that is available ubiqui- rates of up to 20 Gbps under cer-
On the network side, SDN and tously across the coverage area tain conditions and scenarios. Under
NFV are already in play, and are ex- to a mobile user/device. (Note other circumstances, peak data rates
pected to play a key role in enabling that ubiquitous refers to the will be more along the lines of 10 Gbps,
operational network efficiency and target coverage area, not liter- and thats mainly for enhanced mobile
give mobile networks the flexibility ally everywhere in the country.) broadband services (i.e. accessing the
10 Cover Story 5G Insights
internet on your smart device like any given app or service. sive machine-type communication
you do now, only with a faster and The same goes for the other pa- (MTC) scenario would place higher
more efficient connection, and bet- rameters. As Figure 1 (below) shows, emphasis on connection density
ter latency, etc). the ITU has assigned benchmarks than fast data rates (depending on
But data rates for 5G will vary for each of them, but cautions: The the app).
depending on the scenario. The ITU values are targets for research and
document says: IMT-2020 would investigation for IMT-2020 and may Spectrum issues
support different user experienced be further developed in other ITU-R One of the hottest issues sur-
data rates covering a variety of en- Recommendations, and may be re- rounding 5G is, of course, spectrum:
vironments for enhanced Mobile vised in the light of future studies. not just the amount required but
Broadband. For wide area coverage The ITU adds further that the where to get it. According to another
cases, e.g. in urban and sub-urban benchmarks for peak data rates, ITU report (ITU-R M.2376), utilizing
areas, a user experienced data rate mobility, spectrum efficiency and la- the bands between 6 and 100 GHz is
of 100 Mbit/s is expected to be tency are basically extrapolations of feasible for studied IMT deployment
enabled. In hotspot cases, the user its current benchmarks for IMT-Ad- scenarios, and could be considered
experienced data rate is expected vanced (the ITUs codename for LTE- for the development of IMT for 2020
to reach higher values (e.g. 1 Gbit/s Advanced and related technologies). and beyond. And indeed, a lot of
indoor). And as a further caveat, the ITU research at the moment is already
Which is another way of saying notes that the importance of each looking at ways to use the higher-
that with 5G, the exact peak rates parameter is app-specific. For ex- frequency millimeter-wave bands as
wont matter, so long as they deliver ample, mobility isnt that important spectrum resources for 5G.
the best possible user experience for in a hot-spot scenario, while a mas- For now, however, most available
Source: ITU
Security
5G Insights
Insights Cover
Newswire
Story 11
E
ver since Teliasonera both emerging and developed be among the core enablers of 5G
launched the first LTE net- markets are also engaged in R&D technology.
work in Norway in Decem- activities and field trials, there is The costs associated with
ber 2009, close to 450 still a lack of consensus between these changes come at a time
LTE networks have been launched operators and vendors about the when 4G has yet to reach its peak
with over 240 networks planned technology definition and require- (which is expected to be around
to go live in the near future. During ments. 2030, according to the GSM Asso-
the past six years, mobile data traf- According to a survey conduct- ciation), and when operators are
fic has witnessed a massive 89% ed by the GSA, over 40% of opera- still investing in 4G while maintain-
CAGR and is expected to grow at tors consider that all technology ing 2G/3G networks. It is thus criti-
55% CAGR over the next four years. requirements (see Figure 1) should cal for operators to develop a long-
Technological advances with be met for a technology to be term strategy which defines the
carrier aggregation and antenna tagged as 5G, while vendors seem role that telecom networks will play
diversity improved LTE data rates more flexible with almost 24% to enable future advanced services.
and round-trip delays which can classifying the technology as 5G if
theoretically reach 3 Gbps and go it meets some of the requirements. The true 5G question
below 2 milliseconds, respectively, Figure 2 shows the current state of 5G use cases (such as con-
with LTE Release 13. However, while development and 5G-related activ- nected cars, smart homes, high
there is a limit to the availability of ity by key operators. capacity broadband, media eve-
spectrum and the number of an- rywhere, remote surgery, and im-
tennas that can be used, increased Technology hurdles mersive augmented reality, among
data rates are not the only require- While earlier migrations from others) have different speed, ca-
ment for todays IoT applications. 3G to 4G could be done with soft- pacity and latency requirements.
All these tech advances and ware upgrades for recent and This means that 5G must be built
consequent demands have pushed upgradeable 3G equipment, the as an evolution/combination of
the case for 5G, a technology that deployment of 5G networks that networks (including Wi-Fi and
is expected to be built around its can handle diverse IoT use cases small cells) that cater to different
use cases. From smart vehicles and cannot happen in a simple network use cases in logical slices.
smart homes to media everywhere overlay to the current LTE/LTE-A This novel concept of network
and human IoT, new networks need networks. slicing will create a new business
to be tailored to cater for different New spectrum requirements model, where monetization of the
speed, capacity and latency require- (both licensed and unlicensed) dif- network is possible as operators
ments. ferentiates 5G from earlier genera- enable those on demand services
tions. The focus is currently on high via network-as-a-service concept
The first rollouts frequencies (6 GHz and as high as similar to the cloud model that we
The first 5G networks are ex- 300 GHz), which brings the cover- have today. Moreover, the oppor-
pected to see the light in 2020 age issue to the forefront and raises tunity for operators to host con-
with Etisalat vowing to rollout the the need for small cells to deal with tent for some critical applications
first nationwide 5G network ahead coverage gaps. Moreover, while that require low latency will give
of World Expo 2020, and with Ve- the need for a new RAN and air them more control of those appli-
rizon confirming that it aims to interface is still not finalized, net- cations.
begin testing commercial services work virtualization, self-optimizing In times where some opera-
in 2017. While other operators from networks and fiber backhaul will tors are still perceived as pure in-
Security
5G Insights
Insights Viewpoint
Newswire 13
Getting a head
start on 5G
Gang Bo, Ph.D, General Manager of 5G
Products at ZTE, provides a progress update
on 5G, whats coming in 2016, and how cellcos
can get started on their 5G journey
Gang Bo
5G Insights: Taking a high-level view, how far has the requirements set forth by the ITU-R IMT-2020 pro-
industry progressed with 5G in the past year? cess. Furthermore, the next-generation system should
Gang Bo: To put it into context, there has somehow be able to use any spectrum band ranging up to at
been a tradition in telecommunication industry for next- least 100 GHz that may be made available for wire-
generation technology to be developed every decade. less communications in the more distant future. A set
With the global success of LTE, the industry stakehold- of enabling technologies should be studied, e.g. new
ers commenced the initial stage of 5G research in 2012, waveforms (Filter Bank-OFDM), novel multiple access
and established a couple of regional research platforms, schema (Multi User Shared Access) and coding schema
such as the IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group, 5GPPP, 5G (Low Density Parity Check Code) along with deep inves-
Forum, ARIB. The 3GPP RAN Workshop on 5G was held tigation of propagation models at frequencies above 6
in September 2015, where 550 delegates and over sev- GHz with innovative stochastic and ray-tracing hybrid
enty presentations contributed to the discussion, cov- modeling methodologies.
ering the full range of requirements that will feed TSG
RAN 5G work items for the next five years. In addition to Can you give any details of current proof-of-con-
standardization activities, countries like China already cepts or demonstrations ZTE has conducted with
see the emerging and urgent market needs of 5G tech- operators related to 5G?
nology. Consequently, 5G tests and trial plans have re- In the 5G research and test-bed area, ZTE has close
cently been announced with the goal to complete overall relationships and good cooperation with major opera-
system tests and evaluations by 2018. tors around the world, such as CMCC, DT, KT etc. We
have developed and demonstrated 5G key technologies
Which key 5G technologies have made the most pro- like Massive MIMO, MUSA/FB-OFDM of IoT, and High
gress in terms of development, standards, etc? Frequency Communications. We have also developed a
There is an emerging consensus in the whole indus- network slicing prototype which carries actual services
try that there will be a new, non-backward compatible with CMCC. And that network slicing capability can be
radio access technology as part of 5G, supported by dynamically defined and instantiated on demand.
evolution of LTE-Advanced in parallel. 3GPP is working
on identifying and developing the technology compo- What other key 5G technologies or developments
nents needed for successfully standardizing the next can we expect to see more of in 2016?
generation system in a timely manner that satisfies 5G goes beyond traditional cellular services for per-
both urgent market needs and the more long-term sonal use.
5G Insights Q&A 15
A large chunk of traffic will derive from human-to- GHz, which is essential to establishing a worldwide eco-
machine and machine-to-machine communication. system that is beneficial not only to the telecommunica-
The so called Internet of Things calls for new service tions industry but to others who play a significant role in
requirements, standards and innovative solutions. The human society.
most challenging requirement is to support a massive
number of devices, which will easily run to hundreds of What is the most effective way to incorporate legacy
billions. This means that the cost per terminal should be infrastructure into an operators 5G roadmap?
significantly lower than mobile devices. The power con- In order to protect their investment, operators are
sumption has to be low enough so that devices can be very concerned about how to smoothly evolve to 5G. As
battery-powered for years without recharging. Also the a key player in the telecoms industry, ZTE has plenty of
coverage should be robust enough so that devices deep practical experience in real network deployments and
inside basements can connect to the network. Non-or- system upgrades. In addition to research of 5G stand-
thogonal transmission based Multi-user Shared Access ards, we are also focused on the urgent demands of mo-
(MUSA), as one of the new enabling technologies for IoT, bile operators over the next three to five years, starting
allows multiple users to simultaneously access the net- with our proposed Pre5G solution.
work using the same frequency resources. Access can Pre5G takes advantage of practical 5G technolo-
be contention-based, thus significantly reducing the gies and enables 4G users to enjoy a 5G-like experience
control overhead for granting resources and indicating right from 2015, allowing mobile operators to make full
the transmission format. Control signaling optimization use of their existing site infrastructure and spectrum
can reduce signaling overhead when a large number of resources, and improve network performance and av-
devices connect to the network. erage connection speed by 4 to 6 times. So the Pre5G
solution could effectively help mobile carriers to solve
What are the key challenges still to be overcome? their traffic bottleneck issues early, before 2020, and
It is highly desirable to develop a next-generation ensure prosperous development of mobile applications
new radio access technology to meet a broad range and even IoT.
of use cases, including enhanced mobile broadband, Inside Pre5G, there are many key technologies, such
massive MTC, critical MTC, as identified in the Recom- as Massive MIMO, Pre5G UDN [ultra-dense network]
mendation ITU-R M.2083 [Framework and overall ob- and MUSA etc. These can help us to solve the challenge
jectives of the future development of IMT for 2020 and of rapid growth traffic vs limited spectrum, cell density
beyond]. A well-designed technical framework provid- vs interference, and network congestion due to massive
ing mechanisms for forward compatibility is needed connections.
with consideration for phased introduction of 5G fea- With that in mind, in order to incorporate legacy in-
tures in commercial deployment. For example, Phase I frastructure into an operators 5G roadmap, we think the
of 5G targeting commercial launch in 2020 includes fea- following approach may be a good choice. In Phase 1, lo-
tures focusing on enhanced mobile broadband [eMBB], cally deploy Pre5G and 5G RAN in large traffic-demand
while Phase II supports complementary features target- areas, and access the EPC of the existing 4G network
ing commercial launches beyond 2020 for further eMBB via X1. For Phase 2, stop 4G EPC capacity upgrades and
enhancements and IoT. introduce the 5G core network step by step, along with
We encourage the industry to pay more attention to new 4G/5G expansion base stations docking with the
unified air interface concept, standardization and imple- 5G CN Then for Phase 3, deploy 5G RAN and 5G core
mentation, because it yields to a universal design for all network throughout the rest of the entire network after
spectrum and use cases rather having dedicated tech- communication businesses and business type continue
nology for specific ones. Furthermore, we need global to increase, then 4G/5G base stations can be trans-
alignment and consensus-building regarding IMT-2020 ferred to the 5G core network. Through these three stag-
spectrum, especially at frequencies below and above 6 es, the 4G network can be smoothly upgraded to 5G. n
16 Analyst View 5G Insights
O
n the same day as Qual- industry is working to this timeline. through to the network architecture.
comms first public dem- Some key design features:
onstration of millimeter Three market segments Unified air interface: A new 5G
wave (mmWave) a tech- Amid an increasing number of 5G air interface is being developed to
nology central to 5G Ericsson an- demos by Qualcomm and other ven- work across a huge range of spec-
nounced its prediction of 150 million dors, consensus has emerged about trum bands and channel sizes
5G subscriptions by the end of 2021. key aspects of the 5G standard. 5G and support a variety of different
This intriguing contrast of 5G reality is now designed to serve three differ- use cases with different require-
versus hype suggests its time for a ent market segments. These are en- ments across key performance
5G reality check. hanced mobile broadband, massive metrics like data speeds, power
While there have been many Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity, consumption, latency, and sys-
5G demonstrations to date, Qual- and ultra-reliable communications. tem reliability. This air interface
comms was interesting because it Key features of the different seg- relies heavily on OFDM (the basis
showed how mmWave will support ments include: of LTE and Wi-Fi) but is a new de-
high-speed mobile connections Extreme mobile broadband: sign with flexibility and scalability
in high-frequency spectrum. The High speeds measured in Gbps, to meet new requirements. New
demo, a TDD prototype system run- latency down to 1 millisecond wireless technologies includ-
ning in the 28-GHz band, included a (ms) end-to-end, and the use of ing mmWave and massive MIMO
base station with 128 antennas and a high-frequency spectrum bands are key to the new 5G air inter-
device with 16 antennas. It used intel- above 6 GHz. face.
ligent beamforming and beam track- Massive IoT: Low power con- Flexible network architecture:
ing to maintain a connection as a sumption, low cost, and the use of 5G relies on NFV and SDN to cre-
researcher slowly moved the device. low-frequency spectrum bands ate a more distributed and flexi-
With data speeds near 500 Mbps to provide broad and in-building ble network architecture. The aim
downstream and 80 Mbps upstream coverage. is to use virtualization to provide
in a 226-MHz channel, it showed Ultra-reliable communications: different devices and services us-
how 5G technology will make mobile High reliability, high availability, ing network slices containing
broadband services viable in high- and low latency down to 1ms end- the requisite network features
frequency spectrum. to-end. and functionality. The aim of 5G
While the demo was a prototype is to deliver different levels of per-
system, Qualcomm made it clear Key design features formance such as throughput
at the event that it would bring 5G In order to serve these differ- and latency across a common
chipsets to market in time to sup- ent segments, 5G is designed to be infrastructure.
port commercial deployment of 5G flexible and scalable at every level Multi-connectivity framework:
services in 2020. It seems the entire from the physical layer of equipment 5G will build on existing features
Security
5G Insights
Insights Analyst
Newswire
View 17
ZTES Achievements in 5G
1. Excellent achievement in the commercial progress of Massive MIMO
While other vendors are still demonstrating the ca- the Pre5G Massive MIMO base station in the Tianhe
pability of Massive MIMO with lab prototypes, ZTE has business district in Guangzhou. The performance re-
already released the worlds first commercial-oriented sults of the Massive MIMO base station were quite
Pre5G Massive MIMO base station. With precise beam exciting up to 4 times cell throughput gain was ob-
forming capability and advanced space division multi- served, and cell edge users enjoyed 6 to 8 times access
plexing, the Pre5G Massive MIMO base station can im- speeds. We believe that via close cooperation between
prove the cell throughput by 4 to 6 times and effectively ZTE and mobile operators such as CMCC and Soft-
solve the challenge of booming data traffic. bank, subscribers could enjoy an extreme network surf-
In October 2015, ZTE and China Mobile (CMCC) ing experience very soon.
successfully completed a comprehensive field test of
Security
5G Insights
Insights Advertorial
Newswire 19
ZTE has made significant progress in developing a fied, we implement them in the form of resource pools
Unified Air Interface. It is no longer a simple combination and fulfill the dynamic scheduling of specific services.
of 5G technologies, but a clear and complete logical ar- The middle layers enable flexible network slicing and
chitecture. It can meet the requirements of diverse 5G elastic resource allocation according to the service type
industry applications based on a unified infrastructure and real-time traffic.
and flexible software configuration, and is compatible to The introduction of service-awareness functions in
full-band deployments from 700 MHz to 60 GHz. the top layer can help to achieve dynamic and intelligent
Here are the key features of the Unified Air Interface: service awareness and traffic aggregation.
In the bottom layer, we have introduced unified wave- In the long term, the introduction of a carrier-grade
form design and a scalable frame structure, to meet the operating system will enable fast, on-demand genera-
diverse requirements of different services and full-band tion of logical network slicing according to the demands
deployment via intelligent adoption of software param- of as-yet-unknown services. We believe this could serve
eters. For physical-layer technologies that cannot be uni- the booming development of new business in the 5G era.
Open Cooperation
ZTE is an important participant and contributor in global 5G technical and standard research activity.
As the core member of Chinas IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group, ZTE is the leader of two work groups, and takes
over 30 percent of important 5G research projects, such as 5G network architecture research, IEEE-oriented 5G tech-
nology research, study of breakthrough physical layer technologies, etc.
In 2015, ZTE joined Horizon 2020, an EU-funded program. Due to our excellent contribution to 5G, especially with
Pre5G Massive MIMO, ZTE has signed strategic cooperation agreements with DT, CMCC, Softbank, Korea Telecom
and UMobile, and has established extensive partnerships with worldwide operators and universities.
With M-ICT as the foundation, 5G technologies will take human beings into the digital society and interconnec-
tion of all things. ZTE will continuously work hard in 5G and welcome the fully-connected M-ICT era with our global
customers. n
Targeted insight on the telco industry
Business
Information
Center
eReport Co-Branded
Survey
B2B
CONTENT
MARKETING
SOLUTION
Webinar Microsite
Research
Reports
For more information, please contact: Jessie Cheung Associate Publisher jcheung@questexasia.com +852 2589 1338