You may remember mobile operators raving about the promise of 5G several years ago. Now, they’re getting excited about a new upgrade: advanced 5G.
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Barcelona, Spain – Telecom operators have not yet completed 5G wireless mobile networks. And yet the major carriers are already talking about building something called “5.5G” or “5G Advanced.”
There was a lot of talk about 5.5G at the Mobile World Congress tech trade show in Barcelona, Spain.
MWC brought together thousands of people in the mobile industry, including leading telecom companies such as Deutsche Telekom, orangetelefonica, BTand vodafone.
In the show, the executives of some of the companies that were working to roll out the new generation of mobile internet.
This will enable more advanced applications than the data-intensive apps we’ve all come to use today, such as FacebookInstagram, YouTube, Netflixand TikTok.
These apps are already well-served by the current mobile Internet, but 5.5G is expected to power more advanced applications in the future.
This includes mixed reality headsets, which are becoming more and more powerful like the tech giant Apple Launching its Apple Vision Pro and Meta Updating last year with its Meta Quest Pro headset.
But it also means that some of the things that 5G promised us years ago, such as self-driving cars, unmanned air taxis, and smart manufacturing enabled by the so-called Internet of Things (IoT), are a reality. It will begin to form. .
What is 5G?
5G is the next generation of mobile internet after 4G, which promises super-fast data speeds and better coverage.
You may remember that mobile network operators were excited about the promise of 5G several years ago. Carriers in China, South Korea, the United States, and Europe began rolling out 5G networks in 2019 proper.
Now, nearly five years on, 5G penetration among consumers remains low.
The number of users with 5G connectivity is increasing. But it is still below the “mainstream” level.
5G has been the fastest mobile generation rollout to date, surpassing 1 billion connections by the end of 2022, 1.6 billion connections by the end of 2023 and 5.5 billion connections by 2030.
5G connections are expected to represent more than half (51%) of mobile connections by 2029, however, and are then predicted to grow to 56% by 2030. These numbers are up to date until January 2024, GSMAi said.
5G is positioned by the telecom industry not only as a consumer product for high-speed downloads, but as a network that can support new technologies such as driverless cars or unmanned air taxis.
This is because it has less bandwidth than 4G. This means that the time it takes devices to communicate with each other is significantly reduced, a feature important in scenarios where data needs to be delivered quickly.
However, after investing hundreds of billions of dollars in 5G networks, carriers have struggled to see returns. Analysts say the real potential to monetize 5G may be on the horizon.
What is ‘5.5G’, and why are telcos talking about it?
5G Advanced, or 5G as the next stage is called, is the next evolution of mobile networks.
Telecommunication networks require standardization. These are universally accepted technical rules that describe how a technology works and its worldwide Interoperability – Interoperability is the ability for two or more systems to work together.
These standards take years to emerge and finalize and involve many players from companies to academia and industry.
Standards-setting body 3GPP, which contributed to 5G, uses a system of parallel “releases” to provide a platform for developers to implement new features at a given point and then allow more functionality to come in further releases. does
In the 3GPP release system, 5G is considered Release 17. This means 5.5G has been dubbed “Release 18” by the industry.
Release 19 is what will effectively be 6G, another major network upgrade. Work on the 6G standard is also underway, but it is still in its early stages.
“The main priorities for developing 5G advanced standards are expanding vertical markets to increase the commercial relevance of 5G, solving deployment issues, and continuing the technology evolution to build the bridge to 6G,” said Milind Kulkarni, vice president and head of InterDigital’s wireless labs, told CNBC. .
“Research in the standard has introduced, improved, and finalized many new enterprise-specific features for 5G development, including network slicing, integration of private and public networks, better positioning, and even specific applications for each enterprise vertical. .”
British telco giant BT’s chief technology officer Howard Watson said 5.5G will promise faster uplink speeds, meaning you’ll be able to stream video, post things online and play multiplayer games more than ever before. fast
“My children’s generation, or even dare I say it, my grandchildren’s generation … that generation, they share a lot. And obviously, sharing requires a lot of upstream.” Watson told CNBC on the sidelines of MWC. “There will probably be a doubling of upstream capacity coming in Release 18.”
More benefits of 5G Advanced over existing 5G, telco execs say, the network will make itself more “intelligent” through the application of AI and machine learning, while also increasing efficiency and reducing overall power consumption.
Mats Granryd, GSMA’s director general, told CNBC that he hopes the industry can focus on staying in the 5G environment for years to come, as there is still plenty of work to be done on monetization.
“I hope that we can stay in the 5G area for a long time, because in the general 4G environment, you and I were consumers. And it’s too early for us to just say, change a SIM card, ” Grenade told CNBC’s Crane Two. “In 5G, 5G is a technology standard that varies from business to business. And it takes more time for businesses to change and use new technologies.”
“Between these typical 10-year standards, I wonder if that will be enough,” Granred added. “We hope that we can live in a 5G environment. 5G advanced – 5G standalone, that’s fine. But extend the time and make sure we have enough mileage to capitalize and monetize and show the world.” That 5G is an amazing technology.”
With 5G Advanced, telecom companies can start making more money from their 5G rollout by charging higher prices. And, with 5G’s focus on enterprise applications, it could be a more important money maker for network operators than for consumers.
Telcos have not yet revealed how much more 5G advanced data plans will cost compared to 5G. But analysts expect they will look to make money from 5G Advanced by getting smarter about subscriptions and using AI and other technologies to run their networks more efficiently.
With 5G’s focus on enterprise applications, it may be a more important moneymaker for network operators than for consumers.
The telco industry has been abuzz with talk of so-called “private 5G” networks, non-public mobile networks installed at company work sites for example, in a smart factory, or remote surgery operation.
When will 5G Advanced be here?
Chinese telecommunications equipment supplier Huawei expects 2024 to be the year in which the commercial deployment of 5G Advanced will formally begin. For Huawei, 5.5G is a network capable of 10 Gbps downlink speeds – and in case you’re wondering, yes, that’s pretty fast.
Huawei last week unveiled eight 5.5G “innovative processes” that it says will help operators build 5.5G networks across all frequency bands. The company is working with carriers in the Middle East, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America to deploy 5.5G.
It’s going to take some convincing for users to move from 5G to 5G Advanced, as they’ve seen little noticeable improvement from their phones upgrading to 5G over the past five years. But Philip Song, chief marketing officer of Huawei’s carrier business group, said it is important that telcos communicate advanced 5G use cases to consumers.
“The most important thing for us is how we can help customers,” he said at a press briefing last Tuesday, in response to a CNBC question. The “biggest success” for 5.5G will only come when carriers “recognize the solution” and deliver it to a large enough number of customers.
In some markets, operators are still working on deploying 4G, Song said — but he doesn’t think that’s the case because different parts of the world are “at different stages.”
Watson told CNBC that he thinks advanced 5G will arrive on the EA network later this year. This is because the 3GPP standard release 18, or 5.5G, is already open for experimentation and telcos are working on trials. It is expected to be completed by June 2024, by which time the protocols that enable 5.5G should be stable.
“Release 18 we’ll start rolling out this year,” Watson told CNBC. “We plan to launch 5G standalone this year as well.”
5G stand-alone is different from advanced 5G. Sometimes referred to as “true” 5G, it refers to the development of a 5G network that uses technology independent of 4G and comes with the promise of realizing the full potential of 5G.
5G Advanced, on the other hand, is a complete evolution of the network.
There is no definitive date for 5G Advanced to begin rolling out, however. And telcos are on the clock to get it up and running.
“I hope that we will be at the bandwidth, the latency, the capacity that needs to be enough,” Mats Granried, GSMA’s director general, told CNBC’s Crane2 at MWC last week.
“That’s what we’re struggling to see in Europe. In five years, we’re going to have a fourfold increase in data usage. And I’m really worried about what’s going to happen at that stage.”
“Will we have cut-offs?” he added. “Will we have a worse-case scenario, a very worst-case scenario? With that worst-case scenario, Europe’s competitiveness will decline.”
— CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report