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The road to 5G5GINSIGHTS

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Despite the 2020 start date the 5G wireless broadband future still poses many questions

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Has there ever been a greater sense of expectation in the tel-ecoms community than there has been as we count down to 2020, and the advent of 5G?

It’s easy to understand the excitement, because with 5G we are not just talking about a technology which can help

us download content faster and get better mobile coverage, we are talk-ing about a paradigm shift in connectivity which will have wide-ranging implications at so many levels.

In all of these, perhaps we are wrong to focus so much on 2020 and decry the fact that many aspects of the technology won’t be ready for implementation.

A more constructive approach is to understand that the closer we get to 2020, the more ambitious that schedule looks. We need to understand that if telecoms players can’t make the shift by 2020 it doesn’t mean that 5G has in some way failed. The full impacts may be as revolutionary as have been predicted, but it might not be necessary for us to make the changes that rapidly.

We seem so demanding of instant change that anything less falls short, but if 5G is a gradual revolution, who is to say it won’t be a more permanent one?

This latest edition of 5G Insights has sought to highlight some of the trends and views on 5G, three years in advance of 2020.

In the Q & A interview, ZTE chief scientist Xiang Jiying details the com-pany’s latest developments in 5G - including bringing Massive MIMO to FDD LTE - and the key technologies that will shape the industry’s future

Tolaga Research chief research officer Phil Marshall analyzes the chal-lenge of value creation. 5G, he says, can be a catalyst for value creation, but only if mobile operators let it.

ABI Research expects that AR and VR will usher in a market revolu-tion, and that 5G’s higher capacity, lower latency and better network uni-formity will be will be crucial in making that a reality.

Ovum, meanwhile, predicts that 5G will be available in nearly 30 coun-tries with 25 million subscriptions worldwide by the end of 2021.

We hope you find our selection informative, and that we can make a contribution to the agenda as we count down to 5G in 2020.

Read on for details. n

Lachlan ColquhounGroup Editor, Telecom Asia

5G: Evolution not revolution

3 Editor’s letter

4 Newswire

8 Cover: The road to 5G

12 Q&A: ZTE

14 Analyst View: Breaking the status quo for 5G value creation

18 Analyst View: AR/VR market revolution will need a 5G backbone

19 Research Note: 5G will be available in nearly 30 countries by 2021

5G Insights Editor’s Letter 3

Published by Questex Asia Ltd.For additional information 5G Insights, please visit our website www.telecomasia.net or contact:

Managing Director Douglas Mulcock douglas@questexasia.com

Publisher Jessie Cheung jcheung@questexasia.comRegional Sales Manager Charlotte Petit charlottepetit@questexasia.comSales & Marketing Executive Sunny Lo sunnylo@questexasia.com

Group Editor Lachlan Colquhoun lachlanc@questexasia.comOnline Editor Fiona Chau fchau@questexasia.comArt Director Pauline Wong pwong@questexasia.com

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Newswire 5G Insights4

Singapore’s Infocomm and Media Development Authority (IMDA) plans to hold a public consulta-tion covering 5G mobile networks

later this year.The regulator will hold the consulta-

tion as part of its efforts to facilitate the commercialization of 5G services in Sin-gapore, Channel News Asia reported.

The IMDA is strongly urging the mo-bile industry to participate in the consul-tation to help the regulator better under-

The Philippines’ PLDT, through mo-bile subsidiary Smart, has complet-ed the first showcase of 5G speeds in the nation.

During the trial the companies achieved a peak speed of 2.5Gbps - as well as a laten-cy of just 1ms - using 100 MHz of spectrum

The demo was conducted at the Nokia Manila Technology Center in Quezon City, and demonstrated use cases for 5G includ-ing 3D 360-degree VR streaming and the Nokia AirFrame data center platform for distributed cloud architectures, which is ca-pable of supporting real-time IoT operation.

“We are excited to work with Nokia in conducting cutting-edge research and de-

velopment for 5G,” PLDT and Smart CEO Manuel Pangilinan said.

“This is a key part of our efforts to trans-form the PLDT and Smart network into the country’s most future-ready data infra-structure delivering a wide range of gigabit digital solutions.”

He said 5G will be critical to realizing Smart’s full vision for the IoT. The operator has a track record of investing in and helping drive the development of the IoT, including the founding the Philippines’ first Internet of Everything consortium in 2014.

Nokia’s Bell Labs predicts that there will be up to 5 billion IoT devices connected through mobile networks by the year 2020. n

Singapore’s IMDA to hold 5G consultation this year

Smart, Nokia conduct Philippines’ first 5G demo

Japan’s NTT DoCoMo has teamed up with the China Academy of Informa-tion and Communication Technol-ogy (CAICT) on research and devel-

opment into potential 5G standards.As part of the collaboration, DoCoMo

will join the CAICT-initiated IMT-2020 Promotion Group 5G trial. DoCoMo and CAICT will also evaluate possible frequen-

cy bands for future 5G networks.DoCoMo joined the IMT-2020 promo-

tion group in August to co-operate with major mobile operators and vendors on 5G R&D and standardization.

The operator has also been conduct-ing joint 5G R&D with vendors including Ericsson, Huawei and others.

The IMT-2020 Promotion Group was

jointly established by three Chinese min-istries in early 2013, based on the original IMT-Advanced Promotion Group. It is the major platform to promote research into 5G in China.

The group is divided into dedicated units covering areas including technol-ogy, spectrum, intellectual property and network architectures. n

DoCoMo joins CAICT’s 5G Promotion Group

stand the industry’s needs, as well as the optimal spectrum roadmap and regula-tory framework that will allow innovation to flourish.

Other initiatives the IMDA will take during the transition to 5G will include the promotion of real-world trials to better un-derstand how 5G will fit into Singapore’s business environment, as well as optimal deployment scenarios for operators.

Singapore’s mobile operators are meanwhile themselves conducting pre-

paratory work for the introduction of 5G – Singtel, for example, recently upgraded its LTE network nationwide to support the pre-5G technology 256 quadrature amplitude modulation (256 QAM), giving the network a peak speed of 450Mbps.

Meanwhile, M1 and Huawei have completed a 5G demonstration over 73-GHz E-band spectrum, achieving Singa-pore’s highest 5G transmission speeds of 35Gbps.

The demonstration at M1’s main op-erating center in Jurong has validated the performance of 5G using millimeter wave high frequency bands, the companies an-nounced. n

5G Insights Newswire 5

Hong Kong mobile carrier SmarTone has joined force with Ericsson to conduct what they say is the city’s first demonstration of 5G technologies using millim-eter wave spectrum.

During the demo the companies achieved a data throughput of 5.7Gbps over a 5G prototype through the use of 4x4 MIMO an-tenna technology in the 15-GHz band. The prototype, built by Eric-sson, comprises a 5G base station, next-generation antenna and a test mobile station.

SmarTone chief technology officer Stephen Chau said the op-erator will later upgrade the 5G prototype to support 8x8 MIMO antenna technology, which will double the transmission speed to over 10 Gbps.

SmarTone and Ericsson also demonstrated use cases for po-tential 5G applications, including a so-called “Human-IoT Interac-tion arm”, which allow humans to control a robotic arm remotely in real-time with 5G capabilities of low latency and high-bandwidth. Such applications, Chau said, could allow surgeons to conduct op-erations remotely using robots or be used in road accidents, op-erations/activities in scenarios unsafe for human presence.

In another proof-of concept demo, a robot was connected to the cloud via a simulated 5G network, using real-time analytics to balance the robot with the latency set at 10ms. In future this ap-plication could be used for mission-critical apps, AI and intelligent

Anew study commissioned by Qualcomm projects that 5G technology has the potential to create 22 million jobs worldwide and produce up to $12.3 trillion worth of goods and services by 2035.

The landmark study into the potential economic and social impact of 5G worldwide projects that by this time, 5G’s full eco-

SmarTone conducts Hong Kong’s first 5G demo with Ericsson

5G value chain to generate up to $3.5tr in 2035

DoCoMo joins CAICT’s 5G Promotion Group

automation like self-driving cars or real-time traffic systems.The pair also committed to launch a mobile technology inno-

vation lab in the middle of this year, which will be aimed at helping to facilitate cross-industry collaboration and developing potential 4.5G/5G use cases and vertical applications.

The innovation hub will provide a platform for development in areas such as ICT and wireless convergence, mobile, IoT and cloud, Chau said. n

nomic benefit should be realized across the globe.The 5G Economy study was jointly conducted by research

firms IHS Markit, PSB and UC California economist Professor Dr David Teece.

According to the study, the 5G value chain itself is anticipat-ed to generate up to $3.5 trillion in revenue in 2035.

Over time, 5G will boost real global GDP growth by $3 tril-lion dollars cumulatively from 2020 to 2035, which would be the equivalent in today’s dollars of adding a new economy the size of India to the world.

“I’ve spent many years studying the impact of general pur-poses technologies, and it’s clear that 5G will propel mobile into that category, assuring the technology’s long-term impact on so-ciety and continued growth for decades,” Teece said.

Polling research conducted in tandem with the economic study also suggests that business decision makers and opinion leaders around the globe overwhelmingly agree than 5G will en-able new products, services and use cases that have not been conceived yet. n

Newswire 5G Insights6

Singtel has announced the nationwide deployment of its 450Mbps LTE-Advanced service as part of the operator’s journey to 5G.

The company has upgraded its LTE network in Singa-pore to support the pre-5G technology 256 quadrature amplitude modulation (256 QAM).

The technology is designed to increase the number of unique waveform shapes to allow the carriage of up to a third more data, as well as increased spectral efficiency.

Singtel will make the 450Mbps service available to all its 4G customers with compatible devices at no extra cost.

Customers with Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge smartphones can take advantage of the faster speeds already, and Samsung plans to release a software update to also support the LG V20. More compatible smartphone models are expected to reach the mar-

ket early this year.“Singtel is investing ahead to deliver faster speeds and wider

connections with the steady deployment of innovative technolo-gies on our live network,” Singtel CEO consumer Singapore Yuen Kuan Moon said.

“With more customers consuming and sharing mobile videos, 450Mbps speeds will enable them to download movies in a flash and give them a better entertainment experience while on the go.”

Singtel also teamed up with Ericsson to demonstrate down-load speeds of 1Gbps in a live 4G network pilot at two sites. The speed was achieved by combining 256 QAM with 4x4 MIMO and tri-carrier aggregation technologies.

The operator plans to roll out 4x4 MIMO technology on its network from next year. The first compatible devices are expected to be ready for launch by the end of 2017. n

Singtel launches 450Mbps LTE-A nationwide

SK Telecom, Ericsson and Qualcomm have announced plans to conduct interoperability testing and over-the-air field trials based on 5G New Radio (NR) standards currently under development by the 3GPP.

In a statement, the companies said the trials will drive the mobile ecosystem toward rapid validation and commercializa-tion of 5G NR technologies at scale.

The interoperability trials will launch in Korea starting in the second half of 2017.

“As 3GPP NR is a global 5G standard, we are delighted to announce early 3GPP NR trials with leading 5G players, Eric-sson and Qualcomm, with which we have made remarkable world’s first footprints in the past with previous generations of groundbreaking mobile technologies,” SK Telecom CTO Alex Jinsung Choi said.

During the trails, SK Telecom, Ericsson and Qualcomm will showcase new 5G NR technologies which utilize wide high-frequency bandwidths to achieve multi-gigabit per second data rates.

The proliferation of 5G NR technology can make it more cost-effective and easier for multi-gigabit internet service to reach more homes and businesses.

These technologies will be critical to meeting the increasing consumer connectivity requirements for emerging consumer mobile broadband experiences such as AR/VR and connected cloud services.

The trials will employ 3GPP 5G NR Multiple-Input Multiple-

SKT, Ericsson and Qualcomm collaborate on 5G NR trails

Output (MIMO) antenna technology with adaptive beamform-ing and beam tracking techniques. It will also make use of scal-able OFDM-based waveforms and a new flexible framework design, which are also part of the 5G NR specifications.

The trials will also provide valuable insight into the unique challenges of integrating 5G NR technologies into mobile net-works and devices. This will enable timely commercial network launches based on 3GPP Rel-15 standard compliant 5G NR in-frastructure and devices. n

Intel announced in January that it will launch what it says will be the world’s first global 5G modem, supporting both sub 6-GHz and mmWave fre-

quency bands.The modem includes a low-power

chip capable of delivering gigabit speeds and ultra-low latency.

It incorporates 3GPP 5G new radio technology including low latency frame structures, advanced channel coding and Massive MIMO.

The company is releasing the mo-

dem with the goal of supporting early trials of 5G technologies and laying the foundation for the development of 5G products and use cases including self-driving cars, smart cities, drones and live VR applications.

The modem will begin sampling in the second half of the year, according to Aicha Evans, corporate VP and GM for Intel’s Communication and Devices Group.

“One challenge facing operators to-day is keeping up with demand for speed

and network capacity by consumers transitioning more of their connected lives to media-heavy applications,” she said.

“The new Intel 5G modem is laying the groundwork for new devices capa-ble of enhanced broadband speeds to satisfy media-hungry users. It is capa-ble of delivering 5G in both sub 6-GHz bands and mmWave spectrum in re-gions worldwide – including the US, Eu-rope, Korea and Japan – making it a true global solution.” n

ZTE has launched what it says is the world’s first Pre5G FDD LTE Massive MIMO offering, after completing field trials of the technology with both China Unicom and China Telecom.

During separate field trials at the China Unicom Fujian Branch Quanzhou Innovation Center and the China Telecom In-novation Center, the companies verified that the technology is capable of enhancing cell throughput by over three times using existing spectrum.

ZTE’s offering is compatible with existing 4G devices, poten-tially allowing operators to seamlessly increase speeds for sub-

scribers without requiring their customers to buy new handsets.ZTE noted that bringing Pre5G Massive MIMO to FDD net-

works will significantly expand its commercial opportunities for the technology, given that more than 85% of LTE networks are currently based on the FDD standard.

Presently the vendor is in negotiations with several Chinese and overseas operators regarding FDD Massive MIMO. The first commercial deployments are expected in 2017, with China Tel-ecom expected to be among the first-year adopters.

Massive MIMO is expected to be a critical technology in the evolution of 4G networks towards 5G. n

Intel announces first global 5G modem

Huawei forges 5G research partnership with BT

ZTE releases Pre5G FDD Massive MIMO

Huawei has announced a partner-ship with UK-based operator BT to conduct joint research into potential new 5G applications.

The companies will work at the BT Labs in Ipswich and other locations in the UK to explore aspects of 5G includ-ing future network architecture, a new air interface between devices and base stations, network slicing to proportion resources for specific services, 5G IoT applications and security technologies.

The partners said they hope that the research will drive the development and industry-wide standardization of 5G technologies.

“[Working with BT] we can explore the potential of 5G networks and ana-lyze how this vital technology can best be delivered,” Huawei rotating CEO Ken Hu said.

“The partnership also demonstrates Huawei’s continued commitment to partnering with world-leading business and academic organizations in the UK to further research and development. We have operated in the UK for 15 years and we look forward to continuing to help build a better connected UK in partner-ship with BT.”

Huawei and BT have been collabo-rating on telecommunications R&D for

11 years. Most recently, the companies announced breakthroughs including a 3Tbps data transfer over BT’s core net-work, as well as research into 40Gbps speeds on the Openreach access net-work. n

5G Insights Newswire 7

Cover Story 5G Insights8

The industry has been marking milestones, but despite the 2020 start date the 5G wireless broadband future still poses many questions

Lachlan Colquhoun

The road to 5G

It’s not hard to find superlatives to describe the world 5G technology will create.

This is the “fourth industrial rev-olution,” a world of unprecedented

connectivity where the consumer experi-ence will reach new pinnacles and artifi-cial intelligence and machine learning will transform everyday life.

According to Qualcomm chief execu-tive Steve Mollenkopf, 5G goes far beyond scaling up speed and bandwidth and re-ducing latency. Sure, we are being tanta-lized with the vision of a world where a 5-GHz signal offers speeds of up to 1Gbps for tens of connections, but what will it actually do?

“5G will have an impact similar to the introduction of electricity, or the car, af-fecting entire economies, and benefiting entire societies,” Mollenkopf told the re-cent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

“Today, billions of mobile devices with extraordinary power are uniting with advancements in robotics, artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, na-notechnology and so much more. Entire industries will change and emerge as data speeds go up and data costs come down.”

Sounds exciting, and it probably will be. But there is a lot to go through before 5G arrives in 2020, and another time lag before the technology starts to deliver on its promise.

In the meantime, milestones are tick-ing by as the telecoms industry matures. The original iPhone is marking its 10 year anniversary as operators like AT&T finally stop supporting it. Meanwhile 2G net-works are being turned off in Singapore this year.

In the 5G world, vendors are teaming up with operators around the world to build their networks, tests are being com-pleted and the results announced, but we

are less than three years away from 2020. How will that impact the business

models of incumbent telcos? The advent of 5G has many of them paddling desper-ately to transform and survive.

Companies like Blackberry are bet-ting their entire future on 5G, as their effort swings from manufacturing de-vices no-one wants anymore to creating software for 5G connected vehicles. The probability is that there will be corporate carnage in the industry as some dino-saurs become extinct, while new and bet-ter adapted species evolve.

Already, the advent of 5G is driving unprecedented industry collaboration. China Mobile, for example, is working with 40 global companies on its 5G offering and many of them – such as General Mo-tors – are from outside the traditional ICT sector.

So the vision might be growing clear-er the closer we get, but the likelihood is that 5G will be a slow roll-out, and no Big Bang. Right now we have LTE, and that seems to be delivering pretty well as the boundaries of 4G are pushed out.

According to the GSMA, there are four key applications which 5G can do which LTE cannot: augmented reality, virtual re-ality, the tactile internet and autonomous driving.

One thing which is for certain is that the 5G networks won’t be cheap to build.

Major Chinese operators, for exam-ple, are about to spend around $45 billion by 2020 to achieve nationwide 5G cover-age, an investment which could also have the benefit – for China – of its technol-ogy and services becoming the de facto global standard.

Investment of that magnitude will need some serious return on investment (ROI) if it is to pay off. Given that China is the world’s number one mobile phone market, with 1.3 billion subscribers, that could be a reasonable bet.

Security Insights Newswire 95G Insights Cover Story 9

The road to 5G Add to that the fact that the Beijing Government is pushing the implementa-tion of autonomous vehicles by 2025, and wants self-driving cars to comprise 10% of the market by 2030, and the 5G busi-ness case has a new dimension.

After all, it’s not just about delivering new services to smartphones. Autono-mous cars are only one area of applica-tion. There are revolutions planned in health care and logistics, for example, which will totally transform the way ser-vices are delivered.

In South Korea, SK Telecom an-nounced in January that it would invest $4.2 billion (5 trillion won) on new busi-nesses based around artificial intelli-gence, autonomous driving, and the In-ternet of Things (IoT).

These businesses will need a 5G net-work to run on, of course, and SKT has al-ready announced a $5 billion investment in that.

“Once the 5 trillion won is poured into the industries, it will provide opportuni-ties for growth to front and rear indus-tries, inducing production worth 9 trillion won and more than 60,000 new jobs,” SKT said in its statement.

The idea is that 5G will be an enabler and an economic multiplier on a scale we have rarely seen before. Like a new high-way between two remote cities or the establishment of a new port, but many times over, the infrastructure has the po-tential to foster a host of new businesses springing up through industry verticals.

In the US alone, consultancy Accen-ture has forecast that the deployment of 5G networks could create up to three million new jobs – both directly and indi-rectly - and add around $500 billion to US GDP. In a January 2017 report, Accenture estimates that to achieve this, operators will have to invest as much as $275 billion over seven years as they build out 5G.

Seven years? Does that mean that

Cover Story 5G Insights10

the 5G world will only gain momentum by 2025?

Given the scale of the build-out and the intensity of the transformation, that is probably reasonable. So let’s not get so hung up about 2020.

Accenture talks about “three tidal ef-fects” from 5G: the 5G business model will facilitate evolution and collaboration, new RAN architecture will promote disruption in greenfield areas, and network and IT archi-tecture will merge, leading to a “tidal” trans-formation in stacks, processes and people.

“Vertical industry will drive the 5G busi-ness case and monetization will require an ecosystem play,” said the consultancy.

It sees verticals such as automotive, manufacturing, health, consumer and re-tail directing global GDP into 5G transfor-mation, adding “pervasive” connectivity to business architectures.

Accenture’s advice to operators: cre-ate a horizontal platform which can best expose 5G capabilities to partners and cus-tomers. It’s all about speed of deployment and agility.

“The report shows what an incredible opportunity there is in all community sizes,” said Tejas Rao, Accenture’s managing di-rector and mobile offering network lead for the North American practice. “5G-powered smart city solutions applied to the manage-ment of vehicle traffic and electrical grids alone could produce an estimated $160 bil-lion in benefits and savings for local com-munities.”

Smart cities is a phrase which also resonates in Telecom Asia’s own patch, par-ticularly in India. There, the government of Narendra Modhi wants to build 100 smart cities by 2020, and nearly 100 initiatives are already set for implementation in 20 initial locations.

For this, 5G is not just an enabler, but is seen as a nation builder.

All these are big predictions, and great expectations. Prepare for some cynicism along the way, but get ready for some spec-tacular results. n

Just over a decade ago, the most sophisticated piece of communica-tions equipment in cars was the radio.

Today, the automotive industry is one of the hottest points of intersec-tion between telecoms vendors, IT companies, operators and old world car makers, with Ford – one of the old-est – saying it is in transformation to a “technology company.”

In September last year, the cross-industry 5G Automotive Association (5GAA) was formed by players in the telecommunications and automotive sectors.

The idea is that it will be a co-op-erative forum to develop, test and pro-mote communications solutions, sup-port standardization and accelerate commercial applications.

There are also applications which span transport and logistics. Truck maker Scania is using 5G mobile tech-nology in its driverless systems, such as an upcoming Singapore trial of “autonomous truck platooning,” where one truck leads three au-tonomous trucks to fully automate the docking and unloading of cargo.

5GAA mem-bership includes some of the big names in both sectors, such as Daimler, BMW, ZTE, China Mobile,

5G future for auto industry

and Denso. Major chipmakers Intel and Qualcomm, both members of the 5GAA, have launched 5G chips with au-tomotive applications in mind.

With the development of autono-mous vehicles, the car of the future will be a complete ecosystem for the smart Internet of Vehicles.

As BMW has said, 5G networks are essential for making driverless cars function effectively, because they will need to transmit data constantly to the cloud and communicate with oth-er vehicles and landmarks along the route.

Smart Cities will need Smart Ve-hicles as their mode of transport, and 5G will deliver a world of connectivity for security, control and information needs.

There are risks, however, and se-curity is a key issue.

This is why cyber security vendor Gemalto, which sees itself as a major

Interference needs new solutions

Security Insights Newswire 115G Insights Cover Story 11

5G mobile data promises to deliver a world of new services and capabilities, but interference remains an issue which must be solved if networks are to meet performance expectations.

The 5G environment will be so much denser than anything we know today. There will be so much more capacity in a given area through the use of more an-tennas and small cells.

A denser environment demands ef-ficient measures and new approaches to mitigating interference, as well as new modulation schemes to improve spec-tral and power efficiency and minimize out of band interference.

Right now, engineers throughout the industry are working hard on ensuring that the almost ubiquitous transmis-sions across a multitude of frequencies and billions of devices - many of them mobile - do not interfere with each other.

They are looking beyond the lower frequency spectrum – 700-MHZ and 2.6-GHz – used by most carriers today, and heading towards 6-GHZ and up to 38-GHz and beyond into the extremely high frequency bands known as millim-eter wave.

Existing frequency bands below 6-GHz will still be utilized in next gen-eration networks, but 5G will also push the adoption of millimeter-wave bands, some of which is likely to remain unli-censed.

The effective use of these millim-eter waves will require newly-developing techniques so that signals can reach user devices without generating too much interference or overly consuming energy resources.

These higher frequencies have the advantage of using beamforming, which instead of broadcasting signals in all di-rections send them directly to devices, be they mobile or fixed.

Beamforming, which can be de-scribed as similar to the way a spotlight illuminates a target, allows for the instal-lation of hundreds of antennas in small spaces, all of them delivering narrow beams with very specific uses and tar-gets.

Working in concert with millimeter-wave and beamforming is MIMO tech-nology (multiple input, multiple output), where equipment can have multiple an-tennas.

This is likely to create better data rates, spectral and energy efficiency, and become the antithesis of broadcast-ing. MIMO will improve the capacity and signal quality of a cell.

A combination of MIMO and beam-forming together mitigate the signal and path loss typically experienced in higher frequency bands, facilitating access to millimeter-wave frequency ranges which have up until now been considered un-suitable for many mobile applications.

Millimeter-wave has the advantage, in the 5G context, of having a short range and an abrupt drop-off in signal strength. This means they can be de-ployed in high density scenarios with lower interference between adjacent cells.

Understanding the propagation of millimeter-wave frequencies and how to manage potential radio interference is still something of a work in progress as the industry counts down to 5G. n

player in 5G networks, is also a 5GAA member. Gemalto’s slogan “Security to be Free” could have been designed exclusively with the auto industry in mind.

Already, major car makers ex-perimenting with advanced commu-nication have had issues with cyberat-tacks.

A Chrysler Jeep was hacked in 2015, when attackers used the car’s connected radio to gain access to the vehicle’s main functions.

For this reason, some vendors are going in another direction.

Waymo, which provides driverless technology to Google’s self-driving car project and is working on trials with Fiat Chrysler, says cars using its sys-tem will remain offline from the inter-net for the majority of time to protect them from hacks.

In Wymo cars, there is no continu-ous connection to the cloud and – in the words of Waymo chief John Krafcik – the vehicles “communicate with the outside world only when they need to.”

This is a direct contrast to the ap-proach of the 5GAA, which is embrac-ing connectivity and 5G technologies as the way forward for the industry.

Some technology companies, such as Blackberry, are staking their entire future on the auto industry.

The Canadian company, which has received $100 million from the Cana-dian Government, announced in De-cember 2016 that its 400 workers in Ottawa would refocus specifically on software for autonomous vehicles. n

Q&A 5G Insights

5G Insights: How far did the telecoms industry pro-gress with 5G in 2016?

Dr. Xiang Jiying: In 2016, a lot of progress was made in 5G in many countries. Verizon announced their propri-etary 5G standard, which is focused more on fixed wire-less access. AT&T promoted millimeter wave (mmWave) technology for the trial. China completed Phase 1 of na-tionwide tests, and is going to start Phase 2 shortly. Ja-pan, South Korea and Europe are developing their own 5G projects and ecosystems at the same time.

Among many key 5G technologies, we believe Mas-sive MIMO has the most potential to deliver the required 5G eMBB spectrum efficiency improvement. So for sev-eral years, Massive MIMO has been a major focus for ZTE, and we are working on several implementations including Pre5G Massive MIMO, 5G NR Massive MIMO, sub-6GHz Band Massive MIMO, mmWave Massive MIMO and dis-tributed MIMO.

ZTE is also leading the way in implementing Massive MIMO on FDD-LTE. This had been regarded as an “impos-sible task” because unlike TDD-LTE, it is not feasible to predict the downlink channel from uplink measurement for FDD-LTE. In the past, this limitation had resulted in un-acceptable levels of overhead when implementing Mas-sive MIMO on FDD-LTE.

However, ZTE made a key breakthrough in this area and we became the first provider in the industry to an-nounce a FDD-LTE Massive MIMO system with a cus-tomer.

What has ZTE been doing to develop its 5G technol-ogy? What is ZTE’s 5G roadmap and timeline?

ZTE gained a lot of traction in 5G in the past year. At MWC 2016, ZTE showcased many new key technologies,

such as Pre5G Massive MIMO, which won the “Best CTO Choice” award. The mmWave prototype, MUSA, and FB-OFDM prototypes were also introduced to the market. ZTE also became the first company to successfully com-plete Phase 1 of National 5G Tests in China.

ZTE is now working on the development of new fre-quency and air interfaces for 5G.

Could you update us on the progress of the collabo-rations and demonstrations ZTE has conducted with its operator customers related to 5G? What are the developments we will see in 2017?

ZTE is very active in collaborating with multinational operators such as China Mobile, Softbank, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom and Korea Telecom. For example, ZTE successfully completed all 5G test requirements that we had so far proposed to China Mobile. ZTE also conducted tests for 5G core and RAN functions with Tel-

Dr. Xiang Jiying, Chief Scientist of ZTE Corporation, details the company’s latest developments in 5G and Pre5G- including bringing Massive MIMO to FDD-LTE and the key technologies that will shape the industry’s future

12

Dr. Xiang Jiying

Achieving the “impossible” with 5G

5G Insights Q&A 13

efonica in Spain. In 2017, ZTE will be involved in many more 5G tests with operator partners.

ZTE’s Pre5G solutions have been successfully de-ployed by many operators globally. In 2016, ZTE co-operated with China Mobile in pre-commercial Pre5G Massive MIMO deployments in 90% of provinces in China. In September 2016, Pre5G Massive MIMO was put into large-scale commercial use by SoftBank in Japan, which deployed the world’s first commercial Massive MIMO system. On December 30, 2016, ZTE released the world’s first FDD-LTE Massive MIMO so-lution, following successful verification through joint field tests with China Unicom. In December 2016, Indo-nesia’s largest mobile operator Telkomsel announced the commercial deployment of its Pre5G network. ZTE also worked with Telefonica Group and Hutchison Drei Austria to run Pre5G Massive MIMO trials in Spain and Austria, respectively. Using the Pre5G FDD Giga+ MBB solution combined with key multicarrier aggregation, 4×4 MIMO, and 256QAM technologies, ZTE success-fully completed tests achieving speeds of over 1 Gbps in Malaysia, Belgium, Hungary and Austria. All this paved the way for Pre5G FDD commercialization. ZTE’s Pre5G solutions are now deployed in commer-cial networks and field tests in China, Japan, Korea, Austria, Singapore, Spain, Malaysia, Thailand and In-donesia. They will be more widely deployed around the world in 2017.

What are key priorities for your operator custom-ers during the demonstrations?

Different customers have different priorities based on their own requirements. Most carriers prioritize en-hanced mobile broadband (eMBB) with the sub 6-GHz band as the first priority. However, Verizon and AT&T are focusing more on mmWave technology because they want to explore the “last mile wireless access” ef-fect. The 5G-IA organization has predicted that not only eMBB but also massive machine-type communications (mMTC) will be great technology enablers for 5G net-works.

ZTE has recently joined the 5G Automotive Asso-ciation (5GAA). How do cars fit into 5G?

The development of 4G-LTE networks has set up a good platform for the vehicle-to-everything (V2X) com-

munication service. In the 5G era, high-speed user cases are important, this applies not only to eMBB, but also Ultra-Reliable and Low Latency Communica-tion (uRLLC) and mMTC. In addition, 5G can provide a solid platform for IoT networks. For the evolution of V2X networks, ZTE believes that the V2X should initially be based on the 4G network, and gradually evolve into 5G New Radio (NR). ZTE and our partners are working on solutions corresponding to this road-map.

What are the potential apps/services will we see initially for 5G?

3GPP has defined three scenarios - eMBB, uRLLC, and mMTC - but has initially focused on more on eMBB in the first phase. Regarding eMBB, besides the traditional handset and data card, VR/AR devices are potential key services for eMBB.

What key announcements related to 5G do ZTE plan to make at the MWC 2017 in Barcelona?

At Mobile World Congress 2017, ZTE will intro-duce new solutions for both Pre5G and 5G.

ZTE will showcase our Pre5G FDD Massive MIMO solution, which is the world’s first Massive MIMO solution based on FDD-LTE. Our solution makes it possible to deploy Massive MIMO on all FDD-LTE networks, which account for 85% of the global LTE market, making Massive MIMO a much more com-mercially-compelling technology. It will help the operators to increase network capacity by multiple times without even getting new spectrum resources.

TDD Massive MIMO 2.0 supports multiple fre-quency bands and adapts to the mainstream TDD frequency band. With a small size, it fits into the BBU+AAU architecture and is conducive to 5G evolu-tion. It also supports multicarrier CA to meet large capacity requirements of operators. Through 16-flow transmission, the single peak flow rate reaches over 2Gbp. It enables a new era of G+ speed.

ZTE’s 5G High/Low frequency series solutions will also be released during MWC 2017, covering most major frequency bands, with support for 5G NR/Beam tracking/Beamforming/Massive MIMO. This will put ZTE in a strong position for the next phase in 5G development. n

Analyst View 5G Insights14

Fast speeds alone will not be sufficient to unlock the benefits of the nascent mobile technology Phil Marshall/Tolaga Research

When the mobile in-dustry is disrupted, it typically responds by inventing a new net-

work technology. Sometimes this pays off, but often it doesn’t. Today the mobile industry is confronted with stagnant revenues and disrup-tive service demands. In response, the industry has invented 5G to de-liver enhanced mobile broadband, ultra-low latency, mission critical connectivity, and “network slicing” capabilities to segment resources according to service demands. To succeed, 5G must create sufficient value for mobile operators. This value will not come merely from 5G performance, but will depend on much-needed operator transforma-tion to capitalize on changing mo-bile service demands.

5G can be a catalyst for value creation – but only if mobile operators let it

Today much of the value from mobile services is captured by web platform providers, such as Face-book, Google and Uber. These play-ers have pioneered cloud architec-tures with virtualized infrastructure and agile operations and business models that capitalize on the grow-ing ubiquity of smartphones, and they curate rather than control criti-cal market assets. For example, Fa-cebook and Google are essentially media companies, even though

they don’t own any media. Uber is a transportation company even though it does not own any vehi-cles. This contrasts the vertically integrated strategies that are typi-cally pursued by mobile operators. However, if operators play their cards right, 5G can be a catalyst for change to propel operators to-wards platform-centric business models.

Ostensibly many of the core 5G capabilities enable operators to do what they do better, instead of providing a catalyst for transforma-tion. Enhanced mobile broadband (EMB) enables faster networks. Ultra-low latency and ultra-reliable connectivity increases the vari-ety of services that operators can support. If operators merely focus on these capabilities for 5G, it will fail. Nevertheless, 5G also capital-izes on end-to-end virtualization with network slicing for allocating network resources according to service demands. If implemented right, network slicing could provide operators with the necessary fabric to deploy network-centric service platforms, with the aim of curating third party services and applica-tions. Today 5G standards address only part of what is needed for net-work slicing. Other requirements include: • Advances in business and op-

erational support systems to enable end-to-end self-service

capabilities, which depend on modular and autonomous eco-systems, with sophisticated management and orchestration capabilities, and;

• Changes to organizational structures, to eliminate opera-tional silos and incentivize the adoption of autonomous opera-tional techniques. In general these requirements

are more challenging to implement than 5G network slicing functional-ity and given the tremendous inertia of status quo, are best initially de-ployed as overlaid or shadow envi-ronments to existing ecosystems.

EMB network constraints might be a blessing in disguise

5G hype is following a well-trodden path that focuses on the theoretical peak data rates achiev-able with 5G/EMB. Not surprisingly, these peak rates are vastly exagger-ated and come with many caveats. To enable the peak data rates for EMB, 5G aggregates large tracts of radio spectrum in either sub-6GHz bands or at much higher frequen-cies between 10 and 100 GHz (i.e. millimeter and centimeter-wave). When millimeter and centimeter wave technologies are used, cover-age is typically limited to small-cell ranges, and mobility to pedestrian speeds. 5G-EMB solutions that op-erate in sub-6GHz bands rely on an

Breaking the status quo for 5G value creation

Security Insights Newswire 155G Insights Analyst View 15

ability to aggregate massive tracts of spectrum and have challenging economics in capacity constrained environments. Furthermore, ad-vancements towards 4G, with what the industry refers to as 4.5 and 4.9G, will achieve peak rates comparable to 5G in the same sub-6GHz spectrum.

While centimeter and millim-eter wave technologies are sever-ally coverage constrained relative to traditional mobile services, they have the potential to cata-lyze industry transformation by advancing autonomous network management, and simplifying net-work architectures and their de-ployment. In particular, 5G/EMB requires sophisticated real-time radio management and optimiza-tion capabilities that are predicated on advanced self-organizing-net-work (SON) principles. Network architectures can be simplified by collapsing access and back-haul domains. Furthermore, since 5G/EMB is essentially a small-cell, lim-ited mobility wireless technology, it can support self-install distribution models to curate network coverage and innovative services and appli-cations in localized environments, such as public venues and enter-prise campuses.

Ultra low-latency forges an uncertain path towards future services

Ultra-low latency connectivity is not required for today’s mobile services, but is needed for emerg-ing services such as autonomous vehicle connectivity and the tactile internet. The tactile internet spans a broad range of emerging services with complex value chains and in-cludes compelling (albeit futuris-tic) applications, such as augment-ed reality, and others that are more ominous like remote surgery.

However the role of 5G for au-tonomous vehicles and the tac-tile internet are far from certain. Tactile internet applications will take many years to achieve mass market adoption and might be implemented primarily with local area connectivity solutions and not require 5G. Autonomous ve-hicles are fast becoming a reality and depends on ultra-low latency connectivity for coordinating vehi-cles. However this connectivity is typically peer-to-peer as opposed to network based and 5G is argu-ably over-designed for the job. The automotive industry has already developed dedicated short range communications (DSRC) for low latency V2V and V2X connectivity. DSRC has the potential to become the de-facto standard for autono-mous vehicles, rather than 5G.

To succeed against competi-tive ultra-low-latency solutions, we believe that the value proposition for 5G must be more than just con-nectivity. 5G efforts must be close-ly aligned with mobile edge com-puting initiatives, and mobile edge computing architectures must natively incorporate end point de-vices as part of the “active edge”.

5G brings IoT connectivity on steroids – but is it really needed?

The Internet-of-Things (IoT) is expected to proliferate in coming years and herald a massive growth in the number of connected de-vices. Traditional cellular tech-nologies that have been designed for mobile users are constrained in the number of devices that can be supported by each base station and incorporate unwieldy core network functionality that is not required for machine type com-munications. However, low power wireless access (LPWA) network

technologies and 3GPP standards like LTE-M1 and M2 have been de-signed to support massive con-nection densities, with significant improvements in device energy efficiencies.

5G standards intend to sup-port over 1 million devices per base station, which corresponds to be-tween 20 and 40 thousand simul-taneously connected devices per square mile. While we expect the number of connected devices to in-crease dramatically over the com-ing years, we do not believe that 5G is necessarily required. LPWA and LTE-M1 and M2 technologies are currently more than adequate and will be improved as device densi-ties increase. Rather than focusing on connection densities, 5G might be better positioned in the market with other capabilities, such as net-work slicing.

5G techno-lust is compro-mising value creation

It is easy to get wrapped up in the technical sophistication of 5G and lose sight of whether or not it delivers sufficient value for mo-bile operators. We do not believe that this value will come from the “speeds and feeds” that 5G ena-bles. Rather it will come from the role that 5G can play in catalyzing mobile operator transformation, with architectures, operations and business models that parallel those pioneered by web platform companies like Facebook, Google and Uber. In addition, 5G cannot be developed in isolation of other transformation initiatives associ-ated with cloud and network vir-tualization, edge computing, and business and operational support systems. n

Phil Marshall is the chief research officer of Tolaga Research

On December 30, 2016, ZTE officially released the world’s first FDD-based Massive MIMO

solution and partnered with China Unicom to complete a field test. Just as expected, the test showed the average gain will be more than tripled for total cell throughput af-ter the application of FDD Massive MIMO.

This is another important technical breakthrough after ZTE released the world’s first TDD-based Massive MIMO solution. This ground-breaking innovation launched less than one year after ZTE’s TDD Massive MIMO solution won the “Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough” and “Outstanding overall Mobile Technology” awards at MWC 2016.

BackgroundMassive MIMO is expected to

be one of the key 5G technologies. It is also the core technology of the Pre5G solution that ZTE presents to operators. The main technologi-cal principle of Massive MIMO is that large-scale antenna arrays are used to process and transmit data at the same time to realize Spatial Division Multiple Access (SDMA), so Massive MIMO can improve spectrum efficiency signally, and meet the high data rate access re-quirements of 5G.

In 2015, ZTE completed prod-uct R&D and field testing of Pre5G TDD Massive MIMO and launched commercial products, which were selected by many well-known op-erators for commercial tests and deployment. At Mobile World Con-gress 2016 , ZTE won the “Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough” and “Outstanding overall Mobile Technology-The CTO’s Choice” awards for its Pre5G Massive MIMO solution.

Mobile World Congress - spon-sored by the GSM Association (GSMA) - is the world’s biggest and most influential event in the tele-com industry, and the Global Mobile Awards represent the highest honor in this field. It was the first time that a 5G technology won an award in the history of the GSMA awards. ZTE’s innovative Pre5G philosophy and ground-breaking ideas wowed the industry and received enthu-siastic responses. In particular, Pre5G Massive MIMO improves the spectrum efficiency of the 4G net-work 3-6 times, already very close to that expected from 5G networks. This not only brings new hope to the 4G operators who are concerned about the rapid growth of wireless broadband requirements, but also attracts a large number of FDD LTE operators who have expressed high expectations for the FDD-based Massive MIMO.

BreakthroughIn spite of the unique technical

advantages of Massive MIMO, solv-ing FDD channel reciprocity is still the core challenge in the industry when introducing Massive MIMO technology to FDD systems.

The launch of the Pre5G FDD Massive MIMO solution is a result of ZTE’s profound technical accu-mulation and continuous innova-tion in the 5G area: • ZTE accumulated a large

amount of data and practical application experience about Massive MIMO propagation characteristics during large-scale commercial deployments of TDD Massive MIMO in popu-lous countries.

• ZTE developed the patented algorithm regarding channel measurement and estimation for the FDD-based Massive MIMO solution in an innova-tive way to implement FDD macro symmetry. In this way, multi-user spatial multiplexing is implemented without addi-tional assistance from mobile phones, and spectrum effi-ciency is enhanced.

• The self-developed vector pro-cessing chip provided a more efficient platform for the con-tinuous evolution and upgrade of Massive MIMO technology.

The technology can help the industry fulfill its lofty 5G ambitions

ZTE pioneers the 5G era with FDD Massive MIMO

Advertorial 5G Insights16

ValueCapacity and performance

have gradually become the de-velopment bottlenecks of 4G net-works during the explosive growth of broadband services and IoT requirements. To solve these prob-lems, ZTE first presented the Pre5G concept and a series of solutions, which provide 5G-like performance and service experiences over ex-isting 4G networks by applying 5G technologies in advance, thus building a comprehensive evolution bridge to 5G.

ZTE introduced Massive MIMO to widely-used FDD LTE networks, boosting the commercial value of Massive MIMO technology. The breakthrough will help operators increase network capacity by mul-tiple times and greatly enhance spectrum efficiency without chang-ing existing spectrum resources. More importantly, the deployment of Pre5G Massive MIMO base sta-tions does not require changes to the existing 4G network archi-tecture, which is fully compatible

with current 4G terminals. This means that commercial revenues can be immediately obtained upon deployment. The 5G core technol-ogy has been introduced before 5G standards are frozen, enabling a smooth transition from 4G to 5G.

ZTE applies Massive MIMO to the 4G era, providing a basis for the development of follow-up 5G prod-ucts. ZTE is advancing the estab-lishment of a unified, flexible, and configurable unified air interface (UAI) on the basis of the overall 5G design, and has always been at the forefront of development of 5G network architecture on the basis of the Cloud Aware Soft-network (CAS) technology. ZTE develops its own iconic technologies in Massive MIMO, MUSA, FB-OFDM, Virtual Cell, and SLA, and is therefore rec-ognized by the industry.

CooperationAfter launching Pre5G solu-

tions, ZTE is highly recognized by the industry, and has carried out extensive cooperation and net-

work development with many global operators. In 2016, China Mobile carried out the pre-commercial de-ployment of Pre5G Massive MIMO in more than 90% of provinces in China. In September, SoftBank in Japan put Pre5G Massive MIMO into large-scale commercial use, deploying the world’s first com-mercial Massive MIMO system. In December, ZTE successfully com-missioned Pre5G Massive MIMO trial networks for Telefonica Group and Hutchison Drei Austria. So far, ZTE has carried out commercial and field tests involving Pre5G products and solutions with many operators in China, Japan, Korea, Austria, Sin-gapore, Spain, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.

In 2017, the launch of the com-mercial FDD Massive MIMO solution will meet more extensive market de-mands. The deployment and applica-tion of this solution in global markets will help 4G operators gain network benefits from 5G technologies ahead of time and get ready for the com-mercial use of 5G networks. n

5G Insights Advertorial 17

5G’s higher capacity, lower latency and better network uniformity will be critical

It is well understood that the con-tinued growth of augmented reali-ty (AR) and virtual reality (VR) will have a far-reaching impact on a

number of markets. However, to sup-port this far-reaching impact requires a capable connectivity backbone. A massive bandwidth requirement for premium content experiences com-bined with ubiquitous all-day device usage will bring about an unprec-edented network strain, unable to be fully supported with current network infrastructure. The introduction of 5G, and its continued development over the next decade, will allow mobile AR and VR to reach their full potential across industries.

The true advantage of 5G in re-lation to AR and VR manifests itself in three components: more capac-ity, lower latency, and better network uniformity. Some applications rely on one component more than another, but supporting all three simultane-ously is critical to enabling all AR and VR use cases under the same net-work.

Both AR and VR applications can be very sensitive to network perfor-mance, with any interruption having a significant negative impact on user experience, which reinforces the role of continued enhancements of mo-bile networks. Although current 4G networks are sufficient for some ini-tial AR and VR applications, the intro-duction of 5G will strengthen existing experiences, enable novel ones, and

make these experiences available for mass adoption.

Following the guidelines set by IMT-2020, 5G aims to deliver: • 20 Gbps peak data rate • 100 Mbps data rates, even at cell

edges • 10 Mbps/m2 area capacity • 1 ms roundtrip over-the-air latency

This improves on current 4G capa-bilities with a 10X increase in through-put, 10X decrease in latency, and 100X increase in traffic capacity. Even with expected 4G improvements, those metrics will fall short when consider-ing mass market AR and VR uptake. 5G will not only improve, but will also be a requirement for some of the most exciting AR and VR applications.

Emerging use cases for AR/VRWhen looking towards a potential

5G timeline, a few of the potential new use cases for virtual and augmented reality include: • Automotive video streaming: with

increased car-pooling and semi/fully-autonomous vehicles in the 5G timeframe, streaming AR and VR content to a moving car will present a highly mobile use case with challenges in capacity, net-work uniformity, network handoff and latency.

• Event venue upload and down-load: ballooning video bit rates compounded by ubiquitous de-vice usage at a densely populated venue will exponentially increase

throughput requirements. The large number of concurrent users will push capacity and latency re-quirements.

• 6 Degrees of Freedom (6DoF) video: next generation video with spatial movement will offer much more immersive experiences but will also require increased bitrates in the range of 200 Mbps to 1 Gbps. Massive bandwidth require-ments will be introduced, and low latency will be required as well.

• Remote control and tactile Inter-net: mission-critical low latency use cases require near-perfect network reliability and perfor-mance. Tactile internet is theo-rized to require under 5ms round trip latency for complete usability.These use cases illustrate the

need for improvements in capacity, latency, and network uniformity that 5G will bring at new levels of cost and energy efficiency, without which the industry will not be able to build solid AR and VR business cases.

Moreover, new use cases for AR and VR will manifest as the capabili-ties of 5G networks actualize. ABI Re-search expects AR and VR to trans-form industries, and 5G will be crucial in making that a reality. n

Malik Saadi is ABI Research’s managing director and vice president of strategic technology, Dimitris Mavrakis is a research director and Eric Abbruzzese a senior analyst

AR/VR market revolution will need a 5G backbone

Analyst View 5G Insights18

There will be 25 million subscriptions worldwide by the end of 2021Mike Roberts/Ovum

5G will launch in 2020 and will be available in every major re-gion worldwide in 2021, with Ovum forecasting that more

than 50 operators will be offering 5G services in close to 30 countries by the end of 2021.

However, the majority of 5G sub-scriptions will be concentrated in a handful of leading 5G markets, includ-ing the US, China, Japan, and South Korea. The US will be the largest 5G market in 2021, with more than 10 mil-lion 5G subscriptions, followed by Chi-na, Japan, and South Korea. Those top four 5G markets will account for more than 80% of the world’s 5G subscrip-tions in 2021.

Major operators such as Verizon, SKT, and Telia have announced plans to launch pre-standard 5G services as early as 2018, with plans to transition to standardized services once the 5G standard is finalized. Early launches of pre-standardized 5G services could help these operators establish a lead in 5G, but could also create challenges around upgrading pre-standard equip-ment and services to the 5G standard. Ovum’s 5G subscription forecasts only include subscriptions to standardized 5G services.

Ovum forecasts that US-based Verizon will be the largest 5G opera-tor by subscriptions in 2021, followed by its rival AT&T, NTT DoCoMo in Japan, and China Mobile. Driven by

the early major 5G investments of lead-ing operators, North America and Asia will each account for close to 45% of glob-al 5G subscriptions at the end of 2021, followed by Europe with more than 10% of subscriptions, with the Middle East and Africa accounting for the remainder.

Ovum produces 5G subscription forecasts every six months, as part of its broader fore-casting of the key segments across the telecoms and media markets. In mid-2016, Ovum published its first 5G subscription forecasts, which predict-ed 24 million 5G subscriptions world-wide by end-2021. Ovum’s new 5G forecasts are a 4% upward revision to 25 million 5G subscriptions worldwide by end-2021 based on additional op-erators planning to launch 5G services in the forecast period.

Uses for 5GThe main use case for 5G through

2021 will be enhanced mobile broad-band services, although fixed broad-band services will also be supported, especially in the US. Over time, 5G will support a host of use cases, including the Internet of Things and mission-

critical communications, but Ovum does not believe those use cases will be supported by standardized 5G ser-vices through 2021.

A number of operators have an-nounced plans to launch what they describe as 5G services before 2020, but these will not typically be based on networks and devices complying with 5G standards, and so are excluded from Ovum’s forecasts.

Ovum defines a 5G subscription as an active connection to a 5G net-work via a 5G device. 5G is further defined as a system based on and complying with 3GPP 5G standards, beginning with parts of 3GPP Release 15, which is scheduled to be finalized in 2018. n

Mike Roberts is the research director for Ovum’s service provider markets group

5G will be available in nearly 30 countries by 2021

Security Insights Newswire 195G Insights Research Note 19

ZTE

ZTE