A generation of wireless is said to have a lifespan of 10 years. It is appropriate to assess 5G, which was launched in Korea early in 2019, at what is conceivably the midpoint of its life. Stefan Pongratz, Vice President with Dell’Oro Group, did just that in a blog post recently, with an emphasis on the RAN implications of 5G-Advanced/5.5G.
In its first five years, 5G has improved the economics and increased the data available for existing use cases, Pongratz notes. But, so far, new use cases have not been uncovered, which would allow the carriers to monetize their investment in spectrum and infrastructure deployment. Pongratz said that advances in the next phase of this 5G will likely result in improved spectral efficiency, as well as grow Enterprise/Private 5G and Cellular IoT technologies, to expand the 5G ecosystem. 3GPP Release 18 and beyond will bring increased sustainability and intelligent network automation, according to Pongratz.
“[5G-Advanced or 5.5G] involves gradual technology improvements aimed at elevating 5G to the next level, creating a foundation for more demanding applications and a broader set of use cases,” Pongratz writes.
Pongratz’s list of 5G-Advanced priorities reads like a high-tech Santa wish list. They include: more capacity, better performance, MIMO beam enhancements, and data rate and latency improvements in the uplinks.
5G-Advanced will be more intelligent, which is expected to allow carriers to use artificial intelligence and machine learning to operate their networks more efficiently. New static and dynamic power savings enhancements in Release 18 will reduce base station energy usage, according to Pongratz. The ability for the uplink and downlink to share spectrum through full duplex will improve spectral efficiency, increasing capacity and reducing latency.
“Looking ahead, operators will continue to invest in new RAN technologies and architectures that will allow them to better navigate stable carrier revenue trends and increased network complexities,” Pongratz writes. “5G-Advanced is not the only toolkit. But it will play an important part as the operators incorporate more virtualization, intelligence, and automation into their RAN roadmaps. AI and ML already play a role in current 5G, and they are expected to penetrate further across the RAN stack.”
By J. Sharpe Smith, Inside Towers Technology Editor
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