5G New Call: Game Breaker?

In the past two years, China has built the world's leading 5G network, 5G users are developing rapidly, traffic is rapidly increasing, under the leadership of the "5G Sail Plan", 5G is accelerating the integration into thousands of industries, industry applications are competing for the flow, thousands of sails are competing.

However, unlike the "in full swing" of 5G applications in the B field, 5G personal applications in the C field have not been well developed, and the category is obviously lacking, resulting in a serious lack of public access to 5G applications: many consumers' impression of 5G is still stuck in "5G is faster network speed, download movie speed is faster"; "5G advantages are not obvious, the current demand for 4G can meet"...

In the field of 5G to C, there is an urgent need to create "killer" applications.

In 2020, the three major telecom operators jointly released the "5G News White Paper". The industry expects 5G news to break the deadlock and promote the development of 5G to C. However, after several years of efforts, the 5G news of many "difficult productions" has not broken through the shackles of terminals and business models, causing big market waves.

Following the 5G news, operators have carried out a major reform of traditional voice services - on April 12, China Mobile released a series of 5G new call (VoNR) products, and began trial commercial use on May 1. In addition, China Telecom and China Unicom are also actively promoting the pilot and commercialization of 5G VoNR. Compared with the "difficult production" of 5G messages, 5G new calls have been supported by many terminal manufacturers. Huawei, OPPO, Xiaomi, Honor, vivo, true self, Samsung, NZONE and other mainstream brands of 5G mobile phones have begun to gradually launch new versions to support VoNR services. The industry is looking forward to, but also waiting and seeing, whether the business model of China's new 5G calls, which is the first in the world to achieve trial commercialization, can be successful and whether it can become a "killer" application in the field of toC.

What is a new 5G call?

What is VoNR? VoNR refers to the end-to-end voice service carried by 5G NR, 5G Core and IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem), that is, the voice service independently carried by the 5G network. Literally, VoNR solves the problem of Voice, the most traditional and basic carrier-grade service - voice. In the early days of 5G commercialization, the industry mainly provided voice services through VoLTE technology. VoNR is the ultimate 5G voice solution, which can not rely on 4G to make calls, directly establish voice bearers in the 5G network, realize the "zero drop" of 5G calls, and users can enjoy smooth 5G network speed while using voice services, and the 5G experience has been greatly improved.

Similar to VoLTE, VoNR uses IMS 5G voice services. Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is the basic protocol of IMS for establishing connections between different users. Enhanced Speech Services (EVS) New codecs combined with ultra-wideband (SWB) and full-band (FB) audio bandwidth enable high-quality audio (HD) and voice applications. EVS codecs are also critical for 5G systems, helping operators provide a great user experience.

Compared with VoLTE, VoNR voice services use EVS encoding, which has stronger anti-frame loss, anti-delay, anti-jitter, and high-fidelity capabilities. Especially in sound, the VoNR sound transmission bandwidth has been extended from 50Hz to 7000Hz to 20Hz to 14000Hz, which has reached the level of high-fidelity headphones. In the weak field environment, VoNR uses upstream voice enhancement technology to ensure user voice perception, whether it is playing mobile games or brushing videos, high-quality voice calls and high-speed Internet access are not wrong.

If so, why should VoLTE be used to provide voice services in the early days of 5G? Because, when designing the 5G system, 3GPP does not provide an independent solution for voice services, but uses IMS-based voice services. In the early days of 5G commercialization, there were two networking methods, NSA (non-standalone networking) and SA (independent networking), which corresponded to three voice service implementation schemes - VoLTE, EPS Fallback, and VoNR.

VoLTE is mainly for NSA networking, NSA only introduced 5G NR RAN, but the core network still uses 4G EPC, voice services are still provided by 4G IMS/VoLTE networks; EPS Fallback is mainly for SA networking, and the LTE era of CSFB is the same, in the 5G SA network can not cover the place, voice services will fall back to the 4G network; VoNR for 5G SA network, voice services are all carried by 5G, A better user experience can be obtained, but only if there is good 5G SA network coverage. By the end of 2021, the mainland has built the world's largest and most technologically advanced 5G SA network, so good network coverage has laid a solid foundation for the large-scale commercial use of the mainland VoNR.

In the 5G era, real-time communication is still an indispensable basic business capability. With the gradual realization of continuous coverage of 5G networks and the gradual maturity of the 3GPP 5G VoNR standard, the all-media value-added service based on the ultra-high-definition multimedia communication capabilities of 5G VoNR will further enhance the voice service experience and enrich the service connotation.

Where is the "new" 5G new call?

5G new calls have greatly expanded the connotation of traditional real-time audio and video communication. In terms of business capabilities, it breaks the traditional audio and video media streaming restrictions and upgrades it to a veritable multimedia communication; in terms of user experience, it breaks the one-dimensional and two-dimensional restrictions of hearing and vision, and increases the new interactive and three-dimensional immersive experience such as touch; in the scope of communication, it breaks the original restrictions between people and people, and expands to the communication between people and things and things.

In addition to high-definition audio and video, 5G new calls will also provide users with richer real-time interactive services, and with the multimedia real-time communication platform as the center, based on a unified and open network architecture, realize the agile development and rapid deployment of innovative services.

For C-end smartphone users, 5G new calls can enhance the multimedia interactive call experience. For example, in addition to the basic call function, it will also provide a rich experience such as incoming call card, content sharing, screen sharing, AR fun call, voice to text, etc.

Specifically, in terms of screen sharing and remote collaboration, both parties to the call can watch videos together, shop together in the cloud, and in the process, AR marking can also be carried out to achieve efficient communication. 5G video customer service can communicate face-to-face with users after user authorization, and upgrade the customer service experience. During the communication process, the user can obtain the information they want to consult through the mobile phone screen, such as a visual display of the package balance.

5G new call technology helps the elderly to communicate barrier-free. Based on 5G VoNR network, combined with speech recognition technology, real-time subtitles and large font display are realized in video calls. For the middle-aged and elderly, it can solve the problem of amblyopia and amblyopia in the elderly, as well as the "digital gap" caused by not installing and not using mobile phone applications; for the hearing impaired people, solve the problem of hearing impaired groups not hearing clearly and inaccurately, and realize the smooth communication between the hearing impaired people and the hearing impaired people.

New 5G calls enable barrier-free communication across languages. Also based on the 5G VoNR network, combined with machine translation technology and semantic understanding technology, it realizes real-time mutual translation between Chinese and English during video calls, providing users with barrier-free communication services under situations where the two languages are inconsistent.

For B-side enterprise users, 5G new calls further subdivide enterprise scenarios, and high-quality voice, as a key function, is embedded in new 5G-based services, such as augmented reality, virtual reality, remote robot control, telepresence applications, and various IoT-enabled services. Based on the requirements of the scene, it can provide business cards, intelligent customer service, government information digitization and other services.

In addition, the new 5G call framework can also be extended to innovative services such as remote maintenance, after-sales service, facility inspection, medical diagnosis and treatment, demonstration teaching, supervision and inspection, audit and inspection through 5G network real-time audio and video communication technology, combined with augmented reality and mixed reality technology.

How is the 5G new call ecosystem built?

It is reported that 5G VoNR can bring many benefits to users and operators. From the user side, VoNR will bring users a better call experience. From the operator side, VoNR can accelerate the transfer of traditional, inefficient 2G/3G CS voice to 4G and 5G, thereby improving network efficiency, reducing network operation and maintenance costs, thereby re-cultivating high-quality low-frequency resources; VoNR is conducive to supporting new 5G applications - AR/VR, holographic and other 5G applications are inseparable from real-time, high-definition audio and video calls, and with VoNR, it can provide enhanced media surfaces to better support these new applications; VoNR can bring new revenue sources to operators. Facing the era of digital transformation and the intelligent connection of everything, voice and video services are extending from people-to-people connections to broader connections between people and things.

At present, the industry is generally optimistic about the development of 5G new calls, and its ecological model is also becoming more and more perfect. First, operators actively try. Abroad, South Korean operator KT has made some optimization attempts in video calls, and released eight major services including communications, games and media at the same time as the release of 5G packages in 2019, of which communication service APP includes Narle and Real 360. Narle is a video calling application, called "New Concept Video Calling Service" by KT, which supports creating your own 3D image based on AR real-time graffiti and overlay emoji stickers during video calls; it can also support 8-party HD video calls at the same time, and supports real-time conversion of voice to text subtitles, as well as sharing pictures and files during calls. On June 2, 2021, Deutsche Telekom announced the successful realization of 5G VoNR calls in Warsaw, Poland, with a number of partners such as Xiaomi.

In China, the reporter learned that the mobile subsidiaries represented by Jiangsu Mobile, Zhejiang Mobile and Beijing Mobile are carrying out the province-wide and municipal commercialization of VoNR. In the "2021 Terminal Evaluation Report" previously released by China Unicom, China Unicom pointed out that with the continuous maturity of VoNR technology and the continuous optimization of end-network collaboration, China Unicom Network VoNR has already met the conditions for commercial use. According to China Telecom's plan for 5G terminals in 2022, China Telecom will conduct VoNR laboratory testing in the first quarter and live network verification in the second quarter. Previously, Shenzhen Telecom has successfully established the first VoNR boutique demonstration area, and formed a joint project team with huawei's boutique network team, after several rounds of iterative optimization, the VoNR boutique demonstration area network has fully met the preset goals, and achieved the goal of a VoNR boutique network that can be played through, without dropping calls, and ultra-high definition anytime and anywhere.

Second, equipment manufacturers actively participate. For example, Huawei proposed a 5-network unified solution to help operators upgrade their calls and simplify the network architecture, and jointly released a new 5G call solution with China Mobile to jointly promote the proposal of relevant standards. ZTE and China Mobile jointly released a new architecture for 5G voice networks. In March 2021, Guangdong Mobile and ZTE took the lead in implementing the pilot 5G new call service based on IMS DC architecture, and completed the first call verification of 5G new call service in the 5G network environment.

Third, terminal manufacturers strongly support. 5G has become one of the important directions of technical reserves and R&D investment of various mobile phone manufacturers, Huawei, OPPO, Xiaomi, Honor, vivo, true self, Samsung, NZONE and other mainstream brands in the market 5G mobile phones have begun to gradually push new versions to support VoNR services. It is worth mentioning that from July this year, all new products newly listed by China Mobile will support 5G new calls.

There is still a long way to go in business monetization

There are also doubts in the industry: can "new calls" become a 5G blockbuster application?

Questions suggest that more needs to be done by the industry.

Business innovation without commercial monetization ability is lifeless, and there are still certain difficulties in the commercialization of 5G new calls. Similar to the previous 5G news, there is no "killer" application scenario so far, and more related concepts can be seen. New 5G calls face a similar situation. The application scenarios of disruptive experiences have yet to be explored, and the industry needs to continue to promote business innovation, introducing richer interactive content, more interactive forms, and more immersive terminal presentation.

In addition, the business model needs to be further clarified, such as the tariff issue is still a major challenge. Although China Mobile proposes that during the trial commercial use of 5G new calls, it does not occupy traffic, and it can use voice calls for minutes. But in the near future, there will also be a need for well-designed tariff packages that are simple and transparent, making it easy for consumers to choose and recognize. Secondly, VoNR puts forward high requirements for the coverage and performance of 5G networks, and puts forward higher requirements for operators for new services, new technologies and new architectures brought about by real-time calls and all-media fields.

In addition, except for China Mobile, which clarified the time node for the terminal to support new 5G calls, the landing time of other operators' products is not clear. To avoid falling into the embarrassing situation of "three monks have no water to eat", each family does not pay attention to interconnection, and always wants to start a new stove, so that the ecological closed loop of 5G new calls cannot be opened.

5G fusion applications are in a critical period of large-scale development, including operators and Internet manufacturers, technology giants are entering a new competitive track, but from the perspective of historical development, operators do not have obvious advantages in Internet services.

Industry experts said that from the technical realization, although some of the technologies in the operator's 5G new calls are better than the products of Internet manufacturers, the number of terminals that support 5G new calls in the future, the effect of technical implementation and the quality of the calls are not test data, and for operators, large-scale realization of technology landing is the key. Operators still need to work together with the industrial chain, make full use of network advantages, find the combination of network and service, and form differentiated products and services.

End

Author: Meng Yue

Editor-in-Charge/Layout: Fan Fan

Review: Shen Qing

Producer: Liu Qicheng

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