Henry Calvert, head of networking at GSMA, spoke to Total Telecom at MWC 2022 and discussed expectations for the upcoming 5G Advanced and the impact this emerging technology will have on the telecom industry.
Since it was first commercially launched in 2019, 5G has evolved rapidly. In fact, 5G is evolving much faster than all previous generations of mobile communications technology.
Industry standards organization 3GPP officially named the next evolution of 5G technology as 5G Advanced in April last year, and announced in December that it would begin defining 5G Advanced in R18.
R18 is currently expected to be released in 2024.
"We've never seen a generation of mobile communications technology evolve so fast. We are seeing operators rolling out 5G networks around the world, using different access technologies such as fixed wireless access (FWA), and 5G SA networks are gradually beginning to emerge. Henry Calvert said. In the future, we will see 5G networks that use the millimeter wave spectrum that operators have recently acquired. And we'll soon see the next generation of 5G, 5G Advanced, begin to empower the consumer and enterprise markets to support new use cases. ”
One of the most exciting new experiences that 5G Advanced will bring to consumers is Extended Reality (XR). In the current network environment of 5G, the application of using XR is still largely in its infancy, but this will change rapidly with the advent of 5G SA networks and 5G Advanced specification standards.
Henry Calvert compared his expectations of the rapid adoption of XR among consumers to the boom in streaming services over the past decade.
"What we've seen during the COVID-19 pandemic is that streaming has become one of the superstars of mobile technology." He said. "With 4G and 5G mobile technologies, we're seeing exponential growth in streaming services. For example, Netflix had about 7 million subscribers in 2007, but now they have 220 million subscribers. This is an amazing increase. ”
He noted that one of the main obstacles to the spread of XR technology to date has been the various limitations of consumer devices. These devices are often very bulky and uncomfortable, not to mention expensive, and the early headsets have now been gradually replaced by more stylish, more user-friendly designs, and more affordable. With more suitable devices on the market, and 5G networks becoming more robust and ubiquitous, XR will soon become the cornerstone of 5G use cases in the global market.
"Over the next five years, XR will really drive demand for 5G Advanced." Henry Calvert explains.
Of course, the XR's potential goes far beyond consumer entertainment devices. In the enterprise market segment, all walks of life are exploring this technology, hoping to enable new ways of working, whether it is collaborating on projects with colleagues in a virtual space or helping engineers with mechanical repairs through AR technology.
XR is just a small part of the benefits that 5G Advanced can bring to enterprise customers. For the first time, the R18 will pave the way for unlocking high-precision positioning and timing technology, giving businesses a more detailed view of their operations in real time. This, in turn, will generate more detailed data sets for businesses, giving them more precise analytical insights than before.
Statista predicts that the number of connected IoT devices will increase to 30.9 billion by 2025, and these capabilities will soon drive industry efficiency in unprecedented ways.
"Businesses started saying, 'I can see my productivity, I can track my assets, I can see the logistics.'" What 5G Advanced brings in this regard is almost ultra-high definition (rendering). It began to shrink the positioning data to a few centimeters, so businesses could find something exactly within their own factories. ”
But while 5G Advanced has undeniably great potential, the industry's path to achieving its definition and widespread adoption remains unclear. The GSMA is currently working to build a 5G Advanced community that brings together stakeholders from all parts of the industry to help define this new technology and the use cases it will support in the future.
"We're focused on scalable adoption adoption — we want to commercially unlock new standards of connectivity." It's really about understanding the use cases and business cases for this new technology. Henry Calvert said.
Ultimately, the GSMA wants to establish and develop an effective 5G Advanced framework so that operators can roll out this new technology as soon as possible and ensure that they are provided with easy-to-understand business opportunities.
C114 Communication Network Ace