5G has played an important role in promoting the digital transformation of industries, and various application scenarios that continue to emerge in the process of industrial transformation have put forward new performance requirements for 5G networks. Against this backdrop, 5G-A (5G-Advanced) came into being. Compared with 5G, 5G-A has a 10-fold increase in bandwidth rate, a 90% reduction in latency, a 10-fold increase in connection density, and a 10-fold increase in positioning accuracy. Cutting-edge technology capabilities, such as large uplink, high bandwidth, low latency, and integrated synaesthesia, create more possibilities for broader and deeper connections, and greatly enhance support for new application scenarios. Therefore, 5G-A is regarded as a transition technology from 5G to 6G, and its emergence provides important support for the realization of more innovative application scenarios.
Industry players have expressed their interest in 5G-A in a variety of ways. At the end of 2023, ITU, several major telecom operators in the Middle East, Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia and other companies jointly announced that they are ready to take the lead in commercial 5G-A in 2024 at the 17th Telecom Review Leadership Summit's "5G-A Year First, the Middle East Goes Hand in Hand" symposium. According to the GSMA (Global System for Mobile Communications Association) Mobile Intelligence Tank, as many as half of operators expect to launch 5G-A commercial networks within two years of the release of the standard. Verizon will launch 5G-A after 3GPP approves the relevant standards, to improve network quality, commercial network slicing, better develop the Internet of Things, and add AI (artificial intelligence) support, said Rima Qureshi, executive vice president and chief strategy officer of Verizon. "5G-A is coming" to build AI/ML (machine learning)-driven intelligent networks that improve capacity, performance, efficiency, XR (extended reality) and other augmented use cases, said Igal Elbaz, senior vice president and chief technology officer of networks at AT&T. Peter Jarich, head of GSMA Mobile Intelligence, said 5G-A would usher in a "second wave of 5G", which would be "central to delivering on the promise of 5G".
In the 5G-A era, the market has put forward new requirements for operators
In the process of 5G development, operators are positioned as "digital service enablers", especially for the industry user market. Operators expect to expand their business areas with the thinking of "de-telecommunications", and rationally interpret this positioning through specific measures, so as to expand many development opportunities that cross industries and in-depth applications.
In the 5G-A phase, this positioning will be further strengthened, while operators are faced with two different development paths.
For operators with strong professional capabilities and rich solutions, their focus can be on the application of next-generation information architecture and technology such as mobile Internet, cloud computing, Internet of Things, and big data, and how to use these applications and basic network architecture to form truly efficient and friendly innovative applications. On this basis, solve user problems, fully tap the value of users, and deeply intervene in the user's production process to find service opportunities combined with their own network capabilities. At the same time, operators can study the changes in consumption patterns and service models in the new network capability environment, as well as the changes in users' consumption psychology and consumption habits caused by these changes, and explore new market opportunities from these changes. Carriers with the above-mentioned strategic vision and capability reserves can become leaders in the digital transformation of industries.
For operators with insufficient professional capabilities and insufficient relevant experience (including those with many cases but no core project capabilities), they need to jump out of the limitations of the industry, abandon the obsession of becoming the leading force in digital transformation with a more open mind, and take how to effectively participate in the industrial ecology and seek a reasonable positioning in it, and promote all parties to give full play to their informatization capabilities as an important task, so as to obtain opportunities for their own development through the improvement of the overall informatization level and service management level of the industry.
In the 5G-A environment, with the improvement of network IT and supporting capabilities of all parties, the market has put forward new capability requirements for operators: in-depth understanding of cloud architecture and related services, integration of cloud capabilities into the network, and continuous enrichment of application scenarios.
This is a huge challenge for market participants who are accustomed to selling resources and are keen to operate at scale. Therefore, it is very meaningful for us to conduct in-depth observation and analysis of the first type of operators, and "T-Mobile For Business" is one of them. In October 2022, during the "Inaugural T-Mobile For Business Industry Analyst Day", T-Mobile made clear its aggressive pursuit of the enterprise market seeking to disrupt and innovate. With 5G as the primary engine for advanced network services (ANS), fixed wireless access (FWA), the Internet of Things and enhanced connectivity, T-Mobile has developed a product and technology development strategy, launched 5G-A network solutions to deliver the 5G performance needed to enterprises, developed 5G-A services in multiple industries and demonstrated real-world applications under the most demanding conditions.
Based on ANS and GDC, T-Mobile creates a 5G-A solution
T-Mobile has partnered with Google to combine its Advanced Network Service (ANS) with Google's Distributed Cloud (GDC) to create a solution that integrates 5G-A network capabilities and cloud capabilities. With the power of 5G and edge cloud, enterprises and government users can explore richer 5G application scenarios. Grand View Research predicts that the global edge computing market will reach $155.9 billion by 2030. The combination of edge computing and 5G to form complementary advantages (such as low latency, high speed, and stronger reliability) is very promising. Edge users of Google's distributed cloud can leverage T-Mobile's 5G ANS for data-intensive computing, with the goal of deploying advanced cloud services as close to the end user as possible, dramatically reducing latency and improving the user experience. At a time when cloud architecture has become a trend, users have a strong need for low latency, high computing power, and network routing capabilities, which are beyond the capabilities of traditional cloud service providers.
An important business case for T-Mobile to leverage 5G network capabilities to meet user needs is SailGP (International Sailing Grand Prix). SailGP applies 5G technology to all cameras on board, leveraging 5G capabilities to provide spectators with innovative, immersive footage of the game. In SailGP's solution, new cameras were first installed on 10 of SailGP's 10 F50 high-performance, hydrofoil, catamaran boats, which sailed at 96.54 kilometers per hour during the race, while cameras with built-in 5G modules delivered high-definition video from each F50 to the SailGP broadcast centre in London. Not only are these wireless cameras embedded with 5G modules, but also powered by AI, which can track the details of athletes' participation, ensuring that every moment of action is captured and providing fans with a unique perspective.
"SailGP and T-Mobile are committed to pushing boundaries in innovative ways to engage sailing fans in the race with live camera footage on board. "In addition, our athletes have real-time access to data, which makes it possible to make quick decisions in response to a wide range of emergencies." In addition, the 5G network will support on-board equipment, allowing athletes to adjust their participation strategies at any time based on competition data. Equipped with 125 sensors per ship in the SailGP fleet (the hull can therefore be considered a large IoT device), 300,000 pieces of data per second are sent via T-Mobile's 5G routers, and the entire fleet generates 48 billion pieces of data on just one race day. Such a large amount of data and the scale of collection, as well as the real-time processing and transmission of data, provide a very rare stage for the development of 5G and 5G-A network capabilities.
As can be seen from the above examples, T-Mobile's advanced network services provide rich scenario design capabilities, including private private networks, hybrid private networks, public network-based private networks, and edge networks.
Application scenarios are the biggest challenge for 5G-A implementation
The development of 5G-A is becoming richer and more integrated from both business and technology perspectives. In the process of developing 5G-A, operators have many opportunities to jump out of the original business model and put it into practice. Therefore, a careful observation and careful analysis of the initiatives of those relatively aggressive operators in the field of 5G-A will help to have a more intuitive impression of the development of 5G-A. T-Mobile prefers to see itself as a disruptive force in the market, leveraging its early market advantage by transforming faster than its competitors – and that's what T-Mobile has learned about in the 5G market. However, in the industry user market, the risk of weak professional knowledge and skill reserves requires long-term accumulation to be solved.
"T-Mobile for Business" is currently focused on seven industries (such as industrial manufacturing, logistics, retail, and smart cities) and wants to provide the best solutions, but the implementation is very challenging. Vertical expertise, consulting, and integration capabilities, which traditional operators do not have an advantage in, are highly important in the industry user market – the establishment of these skills requires a lot of project experience to accumulate.
In this case, although the attempt of "T-Mobile for Business" in the field of 5G-A is very important, it also needs to be steady and steady, with the help of market expansion, and constantly make up for the shortcomings of capabilities in various fields, so that the capabilities of 5G-A can be fully demonstrated. In 2019, Mckincey released a survey report on the development of 5G, which showed that many practitioners were skeptical about the implementation of 5G scenarios. In the report provided by Mckincey, 60% of the operators surveyed identified use cases as the most challenging "strategic factor". Mckincey's analysts made this point in the report: "Although it looks commercially tempting and the technology reserves seem to be ripe, most markets will not be able to appreciate it until 2020." It can be seen that the key to technological development is a mature and feasible business model. And for now, it seems that this prediction also applies to 5G-A.